A Haunting in Beacon Hills
by hbrackett
Summary: This is the same AU as 'Wolfy Little Christmas' for those fans who liked it so much. Stiles throws a Halloween party in a haunted house, and hijinks ensue. Keep your nightlight on after you read this, kids.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N – In my quest to traumatize poor Derek on yet another holiday (and who knows, this may become a trend; a very dark version of 'How They Celebrate' for all you Boy-On-Strings fans (love ya, Kris!), I'm having the Beacon Hills Scooby gang star in a good old-fashioned horror story where the werewolves are definitely not the scariest things around. If I could turn Christmas into a nightmare, Halloween should be a breeze…**_

_**As always, your reviews are what keep me writing! Share the love folks!**_

Thursday night was steak night, and Derek had no idea why Stiles was trying to ruin his favorite evening of the week with a fresh shipment from the land of nonsense.

"They call it 'Fear House'. It's supposed to be the most haunted house in California. Jackson's dad's company just bought it and they're going to tear it down on Monday! If we want to see the inside of it, this weekend is the last chance we'll have!" Stiles turned the steaks over on the outdoor grill after brushing another coating of his famous marinade into the tender meat. The tantalizing smell was doing to his teeth what the sight of Derek in just his cutoff denim shorts did to other parts of his body. Stiles wore a similar outfit, but though his physique had greatly improved since he became a full member of the Pack, he was and always would be shy about showing off his body to anyone but Derek. A Black Heart Procession t-shirt lay nearby in case one of the Pack stopped by for a visit that Stiles would dive into the moment he heard the engine.

Derek rolled his eyes, trying to rake the rest of the dried autumn leaves in the yard into a neat pile. "You're wetting yourself over the idea of spending the weekend in a condemned and spooky old house…if I knew you got off on that, I'd never have had this place renovated." he waved at the restored Hale mansion.

"Yeah Derek, but this one's supposed to be _haunted_! Like, with ghosts! Haven't you ever wanted to see a ghost?"

Derek shuddered. "Sure, if it was someone I loved and not some dead maniac that wanted to drive me insane before trying to trick me into killing myself."

Stiles goggled at him for a second. "Okay, that's…really specific. And also too bad, since that's what the ghosts in that place are supposed to do. Come on, Saturday night is Halloween! My second favorite holiday! It'll be the ultimate! We'll get the whole Pack to go with us!"

"What makes you think they would want to?" Derek leaned the rake up against a nearby tree and stretched, and Stiles forgot about steaks and haunted houses both as he watched the play of muscles under the taut flesh. Derek caught him looking (of course) and smirked. "If you burn one, you're eating it." he scolded.

Stiles shook himself back to full awareness. "Um…what was I talking about?"

"The ten ways you want me to make you scream tonight."

"No…um…oh, yeah! The Pack. You're the Alpha, just order them to go." Stiles grinned broadly at his own cleverness.

"Forget it! I would never force them to do something that would put them in danger, if the place is even _really_ haunted. That would make me the most irresponsible worthless Alpha in the whole goddamn world."

Derek's eyes gave a crimson flash as he stalked off, leaving Stiles to frantically try to come up with an apology…but then Derek stopped, slowly turned around and came back.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I just care about you guys too much to take foolish risks with any of you."

Stiles breathed a sigh of relief…Derek had changed so much since their first Christmas together. In the past, he might have kept going, leaving Stiles alone and miserable. Now…even after they had a rare argument, no matter how upset they got, Derek always insisted on telling Stiles how much he loved him, and that no fight would ever change that. Stiles would never know what caused such a change in Derek, but he would be thankful to whatever it was for as long as he lived.

"C'mon on, Der. I really want to go, it would make me so happy! Besides, we're all werewolves! What could hurt us?"

Derek sighed. "I'll leave it up to the Pack. The seven of you vote on it, and majority rules. Either way, it's the end of it. Agreed?"

Stiles nodded emphatically. He was sure the vote would be unanimous.

He took the steaks off the grill, and shut off the flame. The two men stood and watched the sun go down among the trees, turning the sky a blood red and giving the prematurely risen moon a crimson tinge. Watching the sunsets with Derek was so fantastic, the two of them holding hands and just drinking in the wash of colors before the day faded away. When the first stars began to sparkle and the moon began to dominate the sky with her own pale brilliance, the men picked up their steaks with their hands and tore great chunks out with sharpened teeth designed for that very purpose. They watched each other with glowing lambent eyes as the residual juice from the meat (a mixture of salty blood and spicy marinade) ran down their chins and spotted their chests as they ate noisily to an orchestra of newly awakened crickets. When they were done, they playfully licked the remaining juices off each other's fingers, chests and lips. As they alternately kissed and nipped, they began to wrestle and soon they were rolling around on the forest floor as the two pairs of shorts were lost. Derek won their little contest (he usually did, but not always) and took his prize; the Alpha roughly mounting his mate, the two beasts howling their pleasure into the darkness.

_The next day_…

"You're on crack, Stiles. Absolutely not." Scott leaned back on the sofa in Derek's living room with his arm around Allison, who snuggled into him.

"But why not? You were always up for stuff like this before!" Stiles sputtered. Derek smirked. Scott still irritated him sometimes, though he was an excellent head Beta these days. He grew more likely to side with Derek as he matured, seeing the sense in the Alpha's requests he never could when he was newly turned. Scott had even taken over training the younger wolves and Derek had to admit he was doing a damn fine job.

"Maybe it's because the last time you dragged me out to some scary place in the middle of the night… _I got bitten by a freaking werewolf!"_

Stiles sputtered some more. "But…it all worked out okay, didn't it?" he finished lamely. Scott gave him a Glare. Stiles thought his friend must be taking secret Glaring lessons from the Alpha.

"I say no, too." said Lydia, filing her claws to perfect points. "Places like that are bound to be dirty, and I don't own anything I'd be willing to sacrifice for a few lame scares. Let's just have a party like normal…werewolves. Do you know how easy it is to bob for apples with fangs?"

"That's two against, Stiles. Two more 'no' votes, and we stay home to see how long we can hold Lydia's head under water." Derek chuckled darkly as Lydia stuck out her tongue at him and flipped him off with a clawed finger.

"I say yes, Stiles. My dad showed me the place, and we could have an awesome party there. I could even have the power turned on by the time we get there. Some food, some alcohol, a few decorations…it'll be the best party ever!" Jackson almost never went along with Stiles' plans, so the junior Alpha was pleasantly surprised. Derek just gave Jackson an annoyed look.

"That's two votes for 'yes', Derek. Allison?" asked Stiles, hopefully.

"Um…it might be fun, I guess." Stiles and Allison had become total BFF's over the past two years, and although Allison didn't really want to go, she could never resist Stiles' puppy-dog eyes.

"Is that a yes, Allison?" asked Derek, Glaring at the young raven-haired wolfette.

Allison's smile faded away at Derek's expression, but she nodded 'yes' all the same. Scott pulled her closer to him as Derek scowled. Just then, the doorbell rang, and Derek said 'Come in!' Danny opened the door and hung his jacket in the closet before coming to greet his Pack members. Stiles filled him in on the voting session, but Danny was shaking his head no before Stiles was halfway finished.

"No way, my mother taught me not to mess with stuff like that. Sorry, Stiles."

Danny proved immune to Stiles' entire repertoire of pouts, puppy-eyes and any amount of begging.

"Ted has the deciding vote then." Derek announced.

"Great! No pressure or anything! Either way, I piss off one of my roommates!" called Ted as he came in from the kitchen with bowls of snacks and a couple of six-packs of soda.

"I don't want to make anyone mad at me, so I'm just going to flip this coin." Ted pulled a shiny quarter out and tossed it into the air. It spun a few dozen times, winking and flashing in the light before Ted snatched it.

"Heads we stay home, Tails we go to the haunted house." Slapping the coin on the back of his other hand, he revealed…Tails side up. Three werewolves groaned aloud while the other three cheered. Derek closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. Just when he thought he was done with ghosts…

After a great deal of searching, they were able to find sleeping bags for all of them among the camping supplies the Pack pooled together from their respective basements and attics. Jackson made the arrangement with the electric company to have the power turned on for the weekend, while Ted and Danny went shopping for enough food to keep eight hungry werewolves fed for two days. Scott and Allison handled the booze, while Lydia and Stiles went to buy what they needed to decorate it and set up the music system. Derek went down the local library to read up on the place…a little knowledge wouldn't hurt if things got serious.

The house was built in 1890, even before the Hale family had settled down in Beacon Hills. Supposedly built on land said to be cursed by the local Native Americans (of course), the eerie incidents began happening even before the place was fully built. Six workmen died during the construction in bizarre accidents, and a seventh disappeared without a trace. When it was finished, a great party was thrown by the new owners; Manfred and Annabella Pheer. They were newlyweds, he a wealthy industrialist and she the sole heir of a distinguished southern family. From all reports, they were deeply in love…until they moved into their new home. Manfred began telling his friends he believed his wife to be having an affair, though he could never quite catch her at it. Several times he thought he heard a man's voice in a room she was supposed to be alone in, only to hear her claim she heard nothing. Other times he heard a voice curse at him from the shadows, calling him a fool or making threats to kill him. He never found the source of the voice, even searching the house's many secret passages (built in case the Civil War sparked once again…people still remembered the years of bloodshed, and not all of them were happy at the way the War ended). Annabella too began to change. Gone was the loving wife Manfred remembered; she began to harp and nag at him, and she drove the servants from the home with increasingly impossible demands. Her willfulness and temper became legendary, and the ladies' social circles let her know she was no longer welcome among them. In fits of temper, she was seen to throw things or actually strike people who upset her no matter their rank or station.

It all came to a head during a masked Halloween Ball (of course). Manfred stated he saw his wife kissing someone in a mask made to resemble the head of a goat. He tore through the crowd to get to her, and found her standing alone and claiming no knowledge of any goat-masked man. Her temper flared at his accusations, and in full view of the guests struck him across the face. He angrily shoved her against the wall…and then to the horror of all those gathered around, she pulled an ornate dagger from where it hung nearby and plunged it into his chest. Before they could stop her, she ran through the doors into the woods that bordered the property.

Manfred was seriously injured, but nonetheless roared in rage that his hounds were to be released to chase after his faithless wife and bring her to justice before God and man. The servants raced to do his bidding, having no liking for the shrewish carp she had become. Manfred was given a torch, and he and the other guests followed the baying hounds through the woods. He found her trapped in a pool of quicksand, two of his hounds having followed her and become trapped themselves.

"Beg forgiveness, and even now I will pull you from the mire as long as you swear to be faithful and obedient from this moment forward, else may the mud claim you!"

Annabella spit on him as she raged from the quicksand. She forced the heads of the two hounds beneath the mud as she cursed him. "The mud may claim me, but I claim these your hounds! They shall do _my_ bidding from the next world, and we shall make every moment you stay in that prison of a house a _torment_! You will wish our places were reversed before I am done with you!"

The guests arrived and watched as she sank beneath the surface, her maddened screeching finally cut off.

Since that night, whatever evil had existed there before had solidified, given strength and form by the tragic events that occurred. Manfred survived the injury, but found that any time he attempted to leave the property the wound would pain him as if he had been stabbed again. Staying was torture as well; at night he would be pursued relentlessly by 'the goat headed demon', and were he to seek refuge on the grounds of the estate then would he immediately hear the baying of ghostly hounds and the tinkling high cold laugh of his wife as she sent the beasts from the Underworld to find him. The phantoms only appeared at night, and he would spend the day exhausted and unable to attend to his affairs or his business. Several families attempted to make a home there after Manfred finally died a doddering and frightened old man. Without fail, the cycle would repeat itself over and over. Men would become suspicious and violent while women became harpies. The goat headed man would start appearing to them, sometimes in the reflection of a mirror, and then from within shadowy spaces where he would curse at people before finally taking to pursuing them through the house. And then of course, there were the hounds and their Mistress outside…

By the time Derek had gotten through the literature, he was cursing himself for not flatly refusing Stiles and this ridiculous party idea. Alpha werewolf or not, he was pretty creeped out by this story…and he didn't creep out easily. The place was seriously bad news, and he had no idea if they might really be in danger by staying there. He would try once more to talk them out of it, he decided. At least, from everything he read, it seemed that the happenings needed to 'build up' over time. People had stayed there for weeks or even months before the strange things started to happen. One or two nights should be relatively safe, and then the place would be destroyed Monday morning and Stiles would forget all about it. Derek hoped he would be able to do the same.

Derek left the open book sitting on the library table before heading once more out into the fading daylight. An errant breeze let in when he opened the door flipped the next page of the book, leaving the vital words on the page unread.

"Though all reports suggest that the haunting progresses slowly in each case, there is one exception to this rule: _dramatic_ escalations of these phenomena occur on the anniversary of the masked ball…Halloween. Pheer House should be avoided _**at all costs**_ on this night."

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The cars all pulled up to the massive iron gates that guarded the house. Jackson unlocked the rusty padlock and pulled the chain off. The driveway inside the gates was torn up, meaning they would have to leave the cars outside. It was a quarter mile from the gates to the house, and every member of the Pack was grateful for the extra strength and endurance their wolves gave them to help lug all of their gear to the door of the huge mansion.

Derek looked up at the place in awe. Jackson's home was huge, and Derek's was slightly larger…but this monstrosity was the love child of Richie Rich and the Addams Family. It was mind bogglingly huge, as only a wealthy industrialist could hope to afford. This place could not possibly run itself without a full staff of servants. There seemed to be no order to anything, the house was asymmetrical to the point where it bothered the eyes. Some windows were rectangles, some were diamonds and others were circles. Ledges and balconies and patios thrust from the house in nonsensical places, as if the house had taken to 'shifting' itself like a Rubik's Cube. The Pack looked up at as the sun disappeared behind the highest peaked gable, suddenly finding themselves lost in the enormous shadow of Pheer House.

"Well, here we are guys! I told ya it would be a…blast." Stiles' voice trailed off into silence. The rest of the Pack continued to stare at the house quietly.

"Anybody smell that?" asked Scott quietly. Derek nodded. It smelled like rotting meat; but the scent just _hung_ there, not trailing away to a source that could be identified. As if it were part of the house.

Jackson unlocked the front door just as Derek was opening his mouth to call another vote; from the looks of the Pack, the Alpha felt they were a hair away from turning tail and running all the way back to town. Jackson flicked a switch just inside the door. Nothing happened.

"If there's no power, we are not staying!" Derek announced. At that precise instant, the foyer light came on…weakly.

"I guess it needed time to warm up or something." Jackson said quietly.

"Yeah, like your brain. Let's just get this stuff inside." Derek grumped. They trooped into the house, so encumbered by their gear that none of them noticed the front door swinging softly shut behind them…all by itself.


	2. Chapter 2

Nothing eventful happened as they set up the stereo system and carefully hung the decorations (an assortment of ghouls, zombies, vampires and witches) and the dry ice machine. Before too long they were getting into the holiday spirit with a CD of twisted Halloween "carols" like 'Deck the Halls with Parts of Charlie', and 'We Wish You'd Bury the Missus'. Derek rolled his eyes at the graphic lyrics as Stiles bounced around the grand ballroom making sure everything was perfect.

"Derek, how come _we_ don't have a grand ballroom?" Stiles asked.

"Because the Pack doesn't care about that stuff, and I hate everyone else." answered Derek as he mixed an enormous amount of blood-red punch in a huge bowl.

"Oh." Stiles finished up checking the decorations and party 'surprises' (a bunch of supposedly scary tricks, gags and special effects for the Pack to experience as they wandered through the house). Everyone would be given a list of scavenger hunt items to locate, searching one pair at a time until everyone had gone. He could listen in to what was going on elsewhere in the house through a bunch of baby monitors tied into the main console by the stereo. With the push of a button, he could switch from music to a specific room when someone tripped one of the gags and hopefully hear them scream in fright while everyone else laughed. Stiles really wanted people to go by themselves, but Derek would have none of it. Everyone was to be accompanied at all times, or the Alpha would chase them out of the house himself.

"I'm going to look for a bathroom." Stiles announced, yawning.

"You want me to come with?" Derek asked.

"Ewwww, gross. Let's leave _some_ mystery in our relationship. I don't want you to find out I can pee champagne and poop emeralds."

He walked through the double doors, the wooden floor creaking under his feet. As soon as he was out of view, the creaking stopped. Derek listened, his ears developing points as he strained his hearing for the sound of his mate. Nothing. No footsteps, no heartbeat, no breathing.

Derek's own heart began to race faster. He seemed to hear the house speaking to him on some deep level; not with his ears, the words appeared directly in his mind like a memory.

_'See how easily I could take him away from you? There is nothing you could do about it. They could tear this place apart brick by brick to no avail. In fact, none of them will leave here alive, not even the ones whose bodies I leave behind. I could claim him…he would be trapped here, for ages and ages to come, screaming where no ears could hear him, wondering why you abandoned him-'_

"STILES!" roared Derek. His shirt split along the back as he tore through the house. The moment he left the ballroom, he began to hear the sounds of running water, and Stiles' tunelessly whistling as he washed his hands down the hall. Stiles opened the bathroom door.

"Yeah, Der?" he asked. Suddenly noticing that Derek was more than half shifted into his Alpha form, Stiles stepped back with his hands in the air. "Whoa! What gives? Save the scary stuff for tomorrow night!"

Derek was so relieved to see his mate unharmed that he shifted back immediately and grabbed Stiles in his arms squeezing him tightly enough to crack the ribs in a human.

"ACK! DEREK, WHAT IS GOING-"

Derek released him, cold chills running down his back and sweat pouring from his face.

"When you left, I didn't hear you. Sty, it was like you vanished off the face of the earth. And then I heard this voice…"

"You heard VOICES?" Stiles' eyebrows climbed into his hair.

"No, not a real voice, just something in my head. Look, I'm sorry. I must have been imagining things."

"Well, was I right? This _is_ one creepy old place." Stiles walked back to the ballroom, leaving Derek standing there, feeling something he felt very rarely…helplessness.

If what just happened were real and not the first signs of madness…then this house already had him figured out pretty good. Derek would rip the throat out of the Boogeyman himself if he had to, and not blink. But Stiles…not being able to protect him, or having to see him hurt and unable to do anything about it…that was his Achilles heel. It could _end_ him. He vowed never to let Stiles out of his sight again, no matter how many emeralds he could poop.

A huge crashing noise came from the kitchen, and Derek and Stiles quickly raced through the house to see what new horror the haunted mansion had in store for them.

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Danny walked with Ted through the enormous grounds surrounding the mansion. Though the driveway was a wreck, the rest of the property was overgrown but intact. They found greenhouses gone wild, orchards of exotic trees that still held their leaves even at this time of the year, even topiaries and hedge mazes and what looked like the grandmother of all gazebos. They decided to avoid the hedge maze given their familiarity with certain of Jack Nicholson's early movies and merely walked the various path ways and exclaiming over the various finds they discovered. It began to get dark before they thought of heading back to the house, which was now a small point in the distance behind them. Their final destination was a small waterfall that took the colors of the setting sun and transformed them into a dazzling array of rainbows. The place was breathtaking, and although they knew they should get back, they decided to take a few moments and enjoy the scenery while they could…or at least enjoy each other in the scenery. They stripped and dived into the small pool under the heavy cascade, and after they adjusted to the temperature, they splashed and frolicked until they began to get tired. Danny flopped down on the grass while Ted fell down next to him and they examined the stars in the bruise colored sky.

Ted wrinkled his forehead in puzzlement. "That's funny."

"What's funny?" asked Danny.

"The stars. They're…wrong."

"How are stars 'wrong'?"

"The constellations are different. I've been an astronomy geek for years, and what we are seeing now is impossible." Ted tried to sit up, but Danny pulled him roughly back down.

"Screw the stars. Or screw me instead."

"You are insatiable, you know that?"

"Who even uses that word, 'insatiable'? You sound like a college professor."

"That's because mine said the same thing to me." Ted said with a smile.

"You had sex with your college professor? Slut."

"He was hot, and I was a freshman. He still gave me a B- in his class, but an A+ in the sack."

Danny made ralphing sounds, though he knew that it was all bullshit from Ted's heartbeat. Ted wasn't that kind of guy, though Danny wouldn't judge him if he were.

Still…"Well, if you're trying to make me jealous, it's working." Danny let a soft growl come into his voice.

"Imagine, someone jealous over me. I never thought I'd see the day."

Danny growled for real at Ted's words. "Ted, you're freaking hot, I don't know how you can't see it."

"Dan, we've had this conversation before. I know you think so, and I'm grateful you do and hope you never get that dirt out of your eyes that makes you see me that way, but I just don't share that opinion. I don't care anyway though, cause I'm not in love with me, I'm in love with you."

Danny rolled his eyes, choosing not to pursue the matter. Ted's low self-esteem (completely unwarranted) was a result of his family's rejection and criticism of him his whole life. He came out of his shell a little bit when he started dating Danny, but the way he walked on eggshells around the other Pack members and even cleaned up after Derek and Stiles all the time made him the unofficial Omega of the group. No one took advantage of that, thank God, and Derek floored Danny by showing his appreciation for Ted's help in so many ways…but it bothered Danny that Ted felt he would be abandoned the moment he stopped being useful.

Danny opened his mouth to respond when the two boys heard a deep rumbling growl coming from the trees. They both jumped to their feet and quickly pulled their clothes back on. They started backing away from whatever enormous creature was lurking in the trees; the rotting meat smell was the only scent they could pick up from it. An identical growl came from behind them, in the direction of the house. This creature was visible to them with their enhanced vision; an enormous rotting dog that could probably make the Hound of the Baskervilles its bitch was lumbering slowly towards them. Its twin came from the woods, and Danny and Ted took off running as fast as they could. They poured on the speed, shifting into the Beta form without thought. The hounds chased them, capable of speed their previous lumbering gait a ruse to fool the unwary. The two Betas raced neck-in-neck, unaware they were being herded towards a particular spot in the woods where the solid ground gave way to a pool of quicksand that already had enough bodies in it to qualify as a mass grave.

A high cold laugh echoed in their minds. _"Soon I will have two new hounds!"_

They were twenty feet away from the quicksand, the zombie hounds in close pursuit when Ted suddenly stopped and turned, whirling to face the pursuers with a deep rumbling growl, fangs bared and claws out. Danny continued on another ten feet before he could stop himself and return to his mate's side.

"Go on Dan, back to the house! Find Derek and the others and get the hell out of here!"

"No way, Teddy. You make a stand here, I'm with you!" Danny braced himself for the attack.

"Like Derek taught us, that maneuver for rogue Alphas! These are slower than Derek would be, so it should be way easier! We take one each!"

Danny nodded. "Ted…no matter what happens…"

"I know. Me too."

The zombie hounds charged, and Ted and Danny raced towards them as well. The hounds tried to slow down, seemingly surprised that their prey was running _towards_ them. At the same instant, the two Betas slid as if they were heading for home plate, passing between the front paws of the dogs and sliding quickly under their stomachs. Both boys raised one clawed hand and raked open the soft almost liquidy flesh to be rewarded with a shower of foul semi-solid innards. As soon as they were through to the other side, they came smoothly to their feet and leapt so that they landed square on the backs of the rotting canines. They grabbed the massive heads in their clawed hands and savagely twisted them around, the surprised yelps from the hounds sounding almost puppy-like. The bodies quickly devolved into mud that smelled of putrefaction, and the Betas gained their feet and looked at each other, too pumped on adrenalin to speak.

Then, a short distance into the woods, the ground seemed to bubble like soup in a cauldron. The shell-shocked werewolves saw a human form beginning to rise out of the ground, the mud falling away to reveal the grinning face of a skull. A few strands of what was once long hair clung to the scalp, and the thing seemed to be wearing the remains of some kind of dress.

_'My hounds…claim my hounds!'_ The voice spoke in their minds, all the more horrible because there was no escaping it. Rotting innards poured out of the skeleton after the mud had sloughed away, and the smell was unbearable. It reached its bony arms towards them and struggled to pull its legs from the foul pool.

Ted said simply: "Um, okay, I'm done. Dan? Let's go please!" Dan needed no further encouragement. They raced back to the house not looking back and were just running past a large window when a huge door-less refrigerator came crashing through it.

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Scott and Allison explored the second floor, following a hallway long enough to qualify as a highway. Here, it was the sameness that was disturbing. As they passed door after door, light fixture after light fixture, they had the sense that they were passing through the same small section in an endless loop. They laughed about it at first until they turned around and saw no end to the hallway in the direction they had come. They began to wonder if they would be able to find the stairway down to the first floor again…if they needed to get there in a hurry that is, because something was chasing them…

They both decided it would be better to stop thinking things like that.

"So, shall we check out some of these rooms?" She tried a door and opened it, gesturing Scott to try the one on his side. His opened as well. They separated, leaving the doors to their rooms wide open.

Scott's room was some kind of art studio. A few dozen paintings on easels were covered with sheets, and there were a few old palettes and broken brushes on the floor. Scott lifted the sheet on the first painting. It was excellent work, and seemed to be a picture of the hallway outside the room. The perspective was forced, making it look like an infinite tunnel. In the center, or what was supposed to be at the far end of the hallway was a dark figure. It was hard to make out details, but there was something wrong with the head of the figure. It looked odd. Scott went to the other end of the room and pulled the sheet off another piece. Same picture, apparently the next in a sequence though it was nowhere near the first. The figure in this picture was larger, and more detail could be seen. It had red dots for eyes, and horns on its head. Like a goat. Scott shivered, then revealed a third painting near the far window. Same picture, the figure even closer. The goat-thing seemed to be grinning, it's mouth filled with several rows of sharp teeth, like a shark. There was no doubt that it was wholly evil, and Scott was really creeped out by the effect. He walked back towards the door, listening for Allison. He heard her tinkling laugh, and a man's voice speaking to her, probably Derek or Stiles. It was hard to tell. He walked a bit closer to the room's center, wondering if he should look at more paintings, or just go find Allison and rejoin the pack. He scowled, not liking to admit even to himself that he was spooked. Cursing, he pulled off a fourth sheet. The room began to get colder as if he uncovered an air conditioner instead of a painting. The figure was now fully realized, and Scott noticed that the extreme left and right edges of the painting showed open doors…as if the thing were outside right now and approaching the section of the hall they were in. It's grin was wider, and its long alien fingers sported hooked claws. The scariest thing about it was the fact that it was wearing human clothes, a kind of Sunday suit that looked rotted and decayed. It's legs ended in cloven hooves. Scott went to leave the room, but was stopped by an even colder draft from the hall. He had the surest sense the thing was out there. Scott flicked on the light switch, causing a bulb to glow weakly. Scott uncovered the next painting and was horrified to see that in this one, light was painted pouring out of his room, while Allison's remained dark. The figure was now six doors away from their section. Another painting. Five doors, and now the figure was shown to be tall, its horns nearly brushing the ceiling. Allison laughed again, and another low murmur from whichever Pack member was with her. Now he thought it might have been Ted or Danny.

Another painting. Four doors away. The compulsion was almost perverse. He didn't want to do this anymore, and yet he watched his fingers stretching to the next sheet against his will. Three doors. The power of the goat headed man was palpable, pouring from the picture in a wash of malevolence. The room grew even colder, and the lightbulb seemed to dim. The world outside the windows darkened, as if the room floated in a void somewhere outside time and space. Another painting. Two doors down, and Scott noticed the red eyes had catlike irises. The floor in the hallway outside creaked loudly. Another painting, and now the sound of harsh rasping breath began to tickle his ears. Another painting (this one located right behind the door to the room), and the thing was right outside his door. It was turning to his room, the lit one, its mouth open and a forked tongue flicking out like a snake testing the air. Scott wanted to slam the door shut and lock the thing outside, but then it might go after Allison. Whoever was with her might protect her…or it could get them both.

"He doesn't love you."

Scott clearly heard the voice speaking to Allison from across the hall. She sighed.

"Not like I do. You know I'm right. You've said the same to me…" came the male voice again. It was definitely Jackson. Allison didn't respond. Fury began to war with his fear. He always knew he wasn't good enough for Allison, always knew he would constantly have to compete with guys like Jackson. Lydia wasn't good enough for him, he had to have Scott's mate too. Hell, they'd probably have a threeway, laughing at Scott's misery the whole time. He could actually see it in his mind, the three perfect members of the group reveling in their superiority over regular schmucks like Scott. He saw himself crying to the other Pack members, and them telling him 'You didn't expect her to stay with _you?_ We all knew it was just a short-time thing, bro…she was always telling us you _didn't measure up_…'

Scott slammed a fist into the wall, making a huge hole.

Now a new voice spoke. It was completely inhuman sounding, and seemed to come from the hall and in his own mind.

"_You have a choice before you. Close the door, and I will claim your faithless friend and lover. Or, reveal the last painting…and I claim _YOU_!"_ The last word made Scott jump…it was impossible that Allison hadn't heard that. Or maybe she did, and was ignoring it knowing he would make the chump decision and fight the thing for her; then she would be free to be with Jackson while Scott lay dead in a haunted freaking house, and not one of the Pack members gave a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut…

The shift came on him, and he reached out to slam the door shut…actually brushed his claws against the door and moved it…before pulling it back to his side. The harsh breathing continued to sound outside the door, and there was definitely something moving there in the shadows. If that was what made her happy, so be it. He would be better off dead. Not that he intended to roll over and die…he _was_ a werewolf, after all.

"Come get me then. But get one thing straight you spooky fuck: _You're not the only monster around here!"_

Scott snatched off the last sheet and started in surprise. The last canvas was completely blank.

Allison was taken completely by surprise at the room she was in. It was fantastic! Allison loved music boxes, and this was a treasure trove of the most beautiful examples of the craft she had ever seen. She opened one shaped like an egg, and it played 'Moonlight Sonata'. She laughed and tried another. The 'Salzbach Waltz'. She would listen to one, laugh or sigh and then move on to the next. She could spend hours or days in here, and wished she had known so she could have them all removed and sent to the apartment she shared with Scott. She picked up the delicate egg again, deciding to stash it into her bag downstairs. Scott suddenly barged into the room, shifted and furious looking.

"Where is he?" he roared.

"Who?" she asked. She hadn't seen anyone but Scott up here.

"Jackson! I COULD SMELL HIM ALL OVER YOU!" he shouted. He smacked the egg out of her hands. It flew into a wall and smashed to smithereens.

"Scott! I can smell as good as you, and his scent is nowhere up here! He was _never_ up here! Tell me, am I lying?"

Scott was already listening, and looked confused when he realized she was telling the truth. He shifted back.

"Oh my God, Allison I am so sorry! You have no idea what just happened to me! In the other room – nevermind, I really _did_ hear him and I _still _smell him!"

Allison knew he was telling the truth also, and began to get scared…but she was furious too.

"Next time you go around accusing me of anything, you better make damn sure I'm guilty first! And don't you ever hit me again or I will claw your face off!" Allison knew she was overreacting, but the tune from the music box was still running through her mind, setting her teeth on edge. She was quite unable to calm herself down. She stormed out of the room and Scott followed her, feeling more miserable by the second. After a 45 second walk, they found the stairway and went back downstairs, neither one speaking to the other or even acknowledging each other's existence until they both heard Lydia scream.

{}{}{}{}

Jackson and Lydia gazed around in awe at the colossal kitchen. Jackson's new steakhouse that he'd bought for the Pack to dine at whenever they felt like it served about 700 customers per day, but the kitchen here was bigger. Even more surprising was the fact that all the pots, pans and utensils were still hanging from the racks. Many were filthy or rusty, but some looked serviceable. The pantry held dozens of mason jars so covered in spider webs that their contents were unidentifiable. Rusty cans and tins with labels too faded to read sat on other shelves, as well as a few moldering sacks of what might have been vegetables. An enormous 1950's style refrigerator sat in a niche in the wall. Jackson opened it and stared into it with fascination. The shelves had been removed, giving the appliance the look of a large metal coffin.

Lydia came over and touched his shoulder, causing Jackson to lurch backwards.

"What is up with you? It's empty and old, so why do you keep staring in there?" she asked as she unpacked their food supplies. She was delighted to find that the stoves worked, since no one had thought to bring a microwave.

"I never told anyone in the Pack this…but I'm claustrophobic. My mother told me once that a kid got trapped in one of these suckers and suffocated when the door locked him in. I was terrified that it would happen to me if I weren't careful…I hate closed in spaces. You know, I've been tempted so many times to trade in the damned cramped Porsche for an SUV, but my parents would have a heart attack. Plus, Scott would laugh his ass off."

"Well the sooner you marry me and knock me up, the sooner you can buy one and drive the kids around with it while I spend the Whittemore millions on every pair of Jimmy Choo shoes in the world."

Jackson stared at her, wondering if she were kidding. She had just bumped closed in spaces down to second place on his list of worst fears. Lydia walked to the other side of the kitchen while Jackson turned back to the fridge. He had the distinct sense that cold air were pouring out of it, as if it were working. Plus, that rotting meat smell was back. Cautiously, he stuck his hand into the dark interior to see if it was colder inside. He took a step forward, almost touching the back wall of the appliance. Suddenly the heavy metal door swung shut, knocking him forward on his hands and knees inside the smelly, freezing belly of the metal beast. The door snicked as the latch caught.

He shouted in surprise and fear, getting to his feet only to smack his head into the top. The fridge looked easily able to accommodate him standing to his full height from the outside, but now he was standing hunched over, the sides pressing against his arms. He tried to push the door with his hands, but it wouldn't budge. In the darkness, he wasn't even sure he was facing the front; for all he knew he could be pushing against the side. He began to panic as the air quickly turned stale and close, the box continuing to shrink so that he could not even turn around anymore. Real panic set in, and he began to shake the box, but it barely moved, secured into its niche in the kitchen wall. This wasn't supposed to happen to him, he had always been so careful his whole life to avoid exactly this type of situation. He wouldn't be here if it weren't for goddamn Stiles and his stupid idea to have a party here.

And at the thought of Stiles and what he'd like to do to the other boy, Jackson's inner wolf roused itself. It hadn't responded to Jackson's terror, but anger was too closely aligned with its instincts to resist. Jackson was slow in transforming, the wolf finding it more difficult to emerge than usual, but emerge it did. Teeth pushed their way through his gums, flooding his mouth with the taste of his own blood which only served to draw the beast from its lair more quickly. Its rage grew to match Jackson's own, and then surpassed it. Jackson growled and slammed a clawed fist into the metal in front of him and he was pleased to feel it give. He did it again, and again, getting more room to draw his fist back each time. Then he was kicking at the damned door. The walls seemed to try to warp in closer, to embrace him and immobilize him, but the monstrous fridge was not up to the task of holding an enraged Beta werewolf. With one final slam, the door flew off its hinges and slammed into the far wall. Jackson roared and leapt out, turning and picking the fridge up and hurling it across the vast kitchen and through an enormous window. Lydia shrieked at him, and within seconds the rest of the Pack arrived. Derek's eyes widened when he saw Jackson; the boy was pushed past the usual stopping point of the Beta shift, he was halfway into the Alpha phase…something a Beta could do only in the very direst circumstances or in a transport of rage. It took a tremendous toll on the werewolf in question and never lasted more than a short time, but they could do a lot of damage in the meantime. Derek had not heard of this happening to a Beta in his or his father's or even grandfather's time. It was that rare. Jackson's teeth and claws were half again their normal size, and his eyes were flashing between gold and crimson. The rest of the Pack looked at him fearfully. Ted, Danny and Scott shifted reflexively, while Stiles stood in front of the girls in a protective stance. Despite the urgency of the situation, Derek felt a flash of pride that they instinctively could work together to face a threat.

"Jackson. It's me. You can calm down. Your Pack is here…we won't let anything happen to you. Hear my voice, and shift back." Derek put as much of the Alpha command into his voice as possible.

Jackson, or at least the wolfish part of him snarled aggressively at the Alpha. The human part of his mind was deeply submerged…or it had retreated. Looking at the ruins of the fridge

door and the boy's state of panic, it was easy to figure out what happened. The only question was whether it was an accident.

Derek stared Jackson down, letting his own eyes burn crimson while Jackson's stopped flashing and kept the gold glow steadily. He slowly shifted back, looking pale, terrified and human. Then he fainted.

{}{}{}{}

"Lydia, what the hell happened to him?" Derek snarled at the redhead. Scott and Allison carried Jackson to the ballroom and placed him on a small couch while Danny and Ted were washing up in the bathroom. Stiles was raiding the first aid kit he brought looking for smelling salts

"I have no idea! I was unpacking the food while he was just staring into that stupid fridge, and the next thing I know he's throwing it at my head! I didn't hear him get into the damn thing or try to break out of it until he actually did!"

Lydia's heartbeat, though racing, was steady throughout her story, not that Derek would have worried about a lie. Lydia was truthful almost to a fault ever since she was turned. Clearly she was worried about Jackson, despite the occasional argument the two had. She would never want anything bad to happen to him.

Derek listened to the other's stories already, and thought about telling them about the experience with Stiles, but decided against it. The Pack didn't need to know how freaked out he was lest they start to panic. From everything he read, places like this _fed_ on the negative emotions like fear and anger. Eight panicked and enraged werewolves would be like a ten course meal at a 5 Star restaurant.

All of them looked out of their minds with fear, except for Stiles who looked guilty that his big idea led to such trouble. So far, of all of them, Stiles alone had not noticed anything out of the ordinary except for the smells, and Derek thought it might be important to find out why that was.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N – Thanks to all of you guys who have been reviewing, there are fewer of you but your reviews are epic. Thanks especially to Lowlife Theory, whose story "What Do You Get The Werewolf Who Has Everything" I read at least once per week and whose epic "Hell and High Water" rocked my view of the Pack something fierce. Blooboy70, MimeMoe, ByronLancaster, DereksGirl24 and all the rest of you are too wonderful for words. I really hope this chapter rocks your socks off.**_

Jackson still had not woken up from his faint despite all the efforts of the Pack. They took turns sitting with him, electing to wait out the long night before trying to get away. Carrying him would be impossible if something…or _several_ somethings decided to pursue them, and none of them felt comfortable wandering around in the dark after hearing Danny and Ted's story. Derek was determined to get every single member of his Pack out alive, so they would take the fewest risks possible. When they started to complain that they were hungry, Derek sent half the group to the kitchen to cook the burgers and hot dogs they brought. Stiles wanted to go as he was the unofficial cook of their group, but Derek (unreasonably, Stiles thought) ordered him to stay. Scott, Allison, Lydia and Ted volunteered to go. They were in for a shock when they arrived; in the short time they had been gone, the kitchen had returned to the state it was in before…the window was whole and unbroken, and the refrigerator was back in its place with the door intact, looking none the worse for wear. They stayed well away from it while they grilled the meat, unpacking the buns and condiments and a couple gallon jugs of water until they had the makings of a fine (if unhealthy for humans) feast. Only Lydia saw anything unusual before they got back…a blackened and burned hoof print on the hall carpet…the burning smell tickling her nose, as if it happened just a few moments before they walked through…

They ate quietly, and Derek debated filling them in on the story of the house…but he was pretty sure it would only terrorize them more and give them nightmares to boot. More energy for the house to consume.

Lydia excused herself from the group to use the bathroom. Derek refused to let her go by herself, so she took Allison with her (much to Scott's annoyance). Lydia might have resisted even Allison's company, but the sight of the hoof print chilled her. Something seemed to be wrong with Allison; she kept rubbing her temples as if she had a headache. That seemed odd to Lydia; since becoming a werewolf, she had never felt healthier in her life. The accelerated healing factor constantly worked to keep their bodies in optimum condition…Lydia no longer even suffered seasonal allergies, and she knew that Jackson's secret lactose intolerance had gone away as well. So how the hell did Allison have a headache? She was about to ask when they made it to the lavatory.

"Go on in, Lyd. I'll wait out here. Shout if you, you know, get stuck or something." Allison grinned slightly at her joke, then rubbed her temples again.

Lydia sighed, torn between wanting to argue and her natural desire for privacy. Finally, she went in, clicking the lock on the door behind her. She would do her business, and go back to the others as fast as possible. For a miracle, the bathroom seemed to be immaculate, no sign of decay existed here as in the rest of the house. She soon finished up and went to wash her hands. As she reached for a towel to dry them off, she caught sight of a dark shape in the mirror. For a split second, she thought she saw the goat-headed thing Scott told them about. She gave a short scream, but realized it was just Allison's dark hair, hanging down around her face. Allison was looking at her funny, and was smirking at her a little. There was something odd about her eyes too, but Lydia couldn't quite figure out what it was.

"Next time, knock! You scared the crap out of me…no pun intended."

Allison's smile just got wider. "Sorry, love. I forget how quiet I can be sometimes. Let's go to the others."

The large bathroom had two doors in it, and Allison went to the one opposite where they entered. Lydia called out to stop her, but Allison was already through the door and out into a new hallway. Lydia felt a sense of vertigo as she passed through, and she found herself in a long hallway with doors on either side every few feet. The bathroom door closed and locked behind her. They were somehow on the second floor.

"Allison! Wait up!" The brunette was walking quickly down the hallway, yet making no noise at all. She was almost lost in the shadows when Lydia caught up…she somehow felt it would be really bad to let Allison get swallowed up completely. Despite the enhanced wolf vision Lydia could call up, the darkness of this hallway seemed thick and impenetrable.

"Where are you going?" Lydia grabbed Allison's arm, using 'extra' strength. Allison looked at her, surprised…but still smirking.

"I saw a room up here before. It was full of clothes. I want to show it to you. Come and see!"

Allison opened a door at random, and flicked on a light switch. The dim illumination revealed an enormous room that seemed to be just a giant wardrobe. Hundreds of dresses of every conceivable design hung on hangers along the side walls. The back wall was all shoes, hundreds of pairs sorted by size, color and style. Lydia's breath stopped in her throat at the sight.

A few dozen mannequins with detailed faces complete with makeup modeled the fancier dresses in ridiculous poses. Some were bent, some were straight, some looked like they were in the middle of some exotic dance routine…but all of them seemed to be looking directly at Lydia. The mannequins had creepy carved grins on their faces; sly knowing smiles that seemed to say _'We can move when we want to. You can almost catch us out of the corner of your eye, moving an arm slightly left or right or turning our heads just a tad as you walk by…and when you turn your back on us, why then we can REALLY come to life!_'

If Lydia wanted to get a look at those shoes, she would have to walk past the mannequins. She growled in her throat, her eyes flashing gold. Allison turned and looked at her again, still amused.

"Strange…" was all she said.

Lydia ignored her, and gathering her courage she walked past the tangle of limbs and bodies to get to the treasure trove of shoes. A plaster hand seemed to catch in her hair, but Lydia yanked it free causing the mannequin to fall over and bring down a few others as well. Lydia whirled and backed against the shoe wall, her heart rate picking up. The mannequins just lay there…although even the fallen ones seemed to still be looking at her, and they almost looked angry. She didn't want to turn her back on them, but she could feel the coolness of the patent leather behind her, and she sighed…longing to examine the treasures and gleefully snatch a few dozen pairs. The mannequins just lay there, the one that she knocked over rocking slightly for a moment before it became still. Allison wandered over to a niche that had an ornate oriental screen for changing outfits. The brunette ran her hand over the brightly painted wood with its exotic Chinese characters.

Lydia slowly turned to the wall, and there at the top she noticed a pair of shoes that looked exactly like ones she owned when she started high school. They were an extremely limited edition, and only her connections in the fashion world allowed her to acquire one of the few exclusive pairs. Black and sleek, with impossibly thin straps and uniquely shaped heels that gave perfect support even when walking quickly…wearing them was like getting to wander through the Garden of Paradise. Then Stiles Stilinski had pulled up in that ridiculous Jeep and splashed mud all over them before they were out of the box for three hours. He grinned and apologized to her before running off after Scott, and she never told him how for a single moment she hated him with every fiber of her being. That's what led to her rudeness to him all those years, and even after she got over the loss of the shoes she found it impossible to be nice to him…until he confessed to her how much he had always loved her. She forgave him then, and even grew to like him after a while. Had he not fallen for Derek Hale…and had she been able to get over Jackson…who knew what might have happened? But these thoughts were pointless. She had her shoes back! There was no way they were getting left behind. She quickly tried them on, and of course they fit perfectly…as if they were made for her. They actually fit better than the original pair.

"Allison, look at these! These are the ultimate shoes! Quick, let's go back down to the others before they send out a search party. You know, I'm actually glad I came despite everything."

"I'm so glad to hear you say that. I'm happy you like the shoes…you deserve them."

Something about the way Allison said that was off.

"Allison, what is wrong with you? You've been weird since I locked you out of…" Lydia's voice trailed off. "Allison… how _did_ you get into the bathroom if I locked you out?"

Allison just smiled.

"Oh dear God in Heaven! Who the _fuck_ are you?" Lydia took a step back.

"Shall I _show_ you who I am? Just a moment. Let me change into _something_ more comfortable." Allison's voice got deeper as she spoke. She stepped behind the screen, and began to throw articles of her clothing over the top to land at Lydia's feet. Then there was a moist ripping sound, and Allison's _scalp_ with its long wavy black hair still attached came flying over. More tearing, and something that looked like a bloody rubber mask came next. Whatever Allison was becoming, it was breathing very heavily behind the screen…something whose enormous black horns were sprouting from its head while Lydia watched.

Lydia turned around and screamed again. The mannequins were all standing in a line, wooden hands clasping each other's as they formed a barrier against her escape. Their grins were ferocious, and Lydia could see rows of tiny sharp pointed teeth in their mouths, like a shark's.

The thing behind the screen was grunting, and the twisting shadow of whatever it was loomed on a nearby wall. The sight of the thing was going to give her nightmares for years, if the shadow was any indication. Assuming she lived to even _have_ nightmares, of course.

Lydia reached for the wolf inside her. She brutally slammed her terror down and _demanded_ it come out. She shifted, then raced towards the mannequins, vaulting over their heads just as she heard the oriental screen clatter to the floor. The goat thing had finished changing, and now it was coming for her. It gave a weird cry, that was half growl and half bleat, but Lydia did not turn to look at it. She smelled sulfur and smoke as it's burning hooves flamed the carpet with every step.

Lydia tore out of the room, and the thing followed her…it almost sounded like it was galloping now. Lydia forced herself to the very limit, racing towards the stairs in the distance, somehow knowing that if she could get to the ballroom she would be safe. The goat thing liked to chase its prey when they were alone. She dared not slow when she reached the top of the stairs, already screaming for Derek and the rest of the Pack. She would have to leap down the stairs the way she had seen the boys do a hundred times in Derek's house. At the precise moment she planted her foot to leap, the heel of the shoe twisted and broke off. Her body twisted through the air and slammed into the marble floor at the bottom with a sickening crunch. In the darkness at the top of the stairs, the thing that watched her suddenly broke apart into little pieces of shadow that scurried away like spiders just as the Pack arrived to find their fallen member.

{}{}{}{}

The midnight hour struck as Lydia was carefully brought back to the ball room by Scott and laid on a couch next to Jackson. Derek cursed and swore as Allison told them about how Lydia locked herself in the bathroom, and then refused to answer when she called for her. Allison broke into the bathroom to find Lydia gone, and only the open door of a shallow linen closet gave any clue to her whereabouts. There was no other exit from the bathroom, and the closet had no secret panels that she could find. Panicking, Allison went back to the ball room when they all heard Lydia screaming from the second floor. They raced to the stairs to find her broken (but still breathing) body lying in a pool of blood. The injuries were lessening even as they watched, and Derek gently set her limbs so that the bones could heal more quickly, pushing one dislocated arm back into its shoulder socket with a forceful shove. Two Pack members were down, six to go.

Scott was getting frantic, knowing that it could as easily been Allison lying there broken instead of Lydia. "Derek, we have to get them out of here! It is freaking Halloween and we are in a real live haunted house! We are going to be killed if we stay!"

Danny lifted his head up from Ted's shoulder where he'd been resting it. "Dude, if you saw what was out there, you'd be barricading us in right now! There is no way we would make it down that driveway if those hellhounds decided to come after us! Not to mention the weird zombie chick with the dog fetish! Let's wait until morning and go then. That leaves us six hours until sunrise. We'll each take an hour watch and bust out of here, and hopefully those two will be all healed up and wide awake. It's suicide any other way!" He closed his eyes and leaned back down, staring into the fireplace that Derek had managed to build a decent blaze in. Ted absently stroked his mate's hair, a determined look on his face. Derek marveled that as 'flexible' as Ted was, always trying to please his friends and put his own needs dead last…he was the least freaked out of all of them, as if he'd decided that giving in to his own terror would be too selfish. The Alpha had no doubt that the boy would want to be first in any attack and last in any retreat…and no one would ever get left behind on his watch if what Danny told them was any indication. To be willing to face down those hounds just so your mate could escape…Derek would do no less for Stiles or any of them. They were such a strong Pack, none of them realized how powerful they all were when they were together. It would be devastating to lose any one of them, Derek vowed he would die before letting that happen.

Allison fell asleep after a bit, and Scott did as well despite wanting to keep his own personal watch over her. Ted and Danny were both snoring too. Stiles had been extremely quiet since they found Lydia, just sitting by the fire and pretty much ignoring anyone that tried to talk to him. He sat close to the fireplace fiddling with his phone. Derek sat next to him. Stiles stiffened, putting his phone back in his pocket and seemed about to get up and leave.

"Sty, what's the matter?" asked Derek gently, though he suspected he knew.

"Isn't it obvious? This is all my fault. My idea, my responsibility. I put the Pack in danger, Derek. You were right, and I didn't listen to you. If we get out of here…I mean when we get out of here…they're going to want me out of the Pack…and they're right. I should go. Somewhere I can't do any more damage." The firelight glinted off of the tear tracks staining his face.

"It is not your fault. I…read up on this place in the library. There was some really screwed up history in this place, and I still let you all come. I should have stopped it."

Stiles looked at him. "But you didn't. And you know why you didn't? Because of me. Because I wanted to come. I made you come and the others too, and if anything happens…" his voice broke and he couldn't go on. Derek hugged him tightly, stroking his back.

"You couldn't have known. You meant well, Stiles, you wanted us to have fun. That's not a crime. Look…we're werewolves. Danger goes with the territory. There'll always be stuff we have to face, and we may not always win. That's just the way it is. My uncle, Allison's family…not to mention all of the other monsters in the world, quite a few of which seem to be here…we will always have enemies. But one thing you taught me our first Christmas together is that no matter what happens, we have no right to dwell on mistakes or misplaced guilt. It ruins the future as well as the past. You did that for me, got me to think of something besides my own self-loathing, and self-pity. So don't you dare do that to yourself, or I'll rip your throat out…"

Stiles started chuckling. "…with your teeth, I know. That really never gets old. And you have no idea how sexy you are when you say it."

Stiles gazed into Derek's eyes, losing himself in the oceanic depths and thinking for the thousandth time that he had no right to be so fortunate, so blessed to have this wonderful man be completely in love with him.

Derek smirked at him and looked away, the worship and adoration in those dark eyes too much for his soul to bear. The happiness that swelled within him threatened to crack his chest open when he thought about how he had finally met someone who would never betray him, never break his heart and always look at him as if he had all the answers and all the strength and all the power one could ever want…Derek only wished the reality were half as good as the image the Stiles built up in his mind.

Stiles stood up slowly and laid back on the couch closest to the fire, yanking his t-shirt over his head and beckoning Derek over.

Derek sat next to him, and chuckled when Stiles pulled at Derek's own grey t-shirt.

"Sty, now is definitely not the time or the place."

Stiles pouted. "Just lay next to me then. I need to feel your skin on mine."

Derek nodded and pulled the shirt off, then spooned Stiles into the rear of the couch, feeling the heat from the fireplace warm his back. Derek wrapped his arm around the younger boy, and sniffed along his mate's neck until he found the exact spot that gave off the most scent and wedged his face in there, Stiles chuckling at the tickling sensation.

'Better not fall asleep!' he thought to himself. But before he knew it, he fell into slumber as did Stiles. None of the werewolves saw the glowing pair of red eyes hovering just outside of the ball room doors. None of them noticed the fire dwindling down as the temperature in the room dropped, or the faint smell of rotting meat in the air.

A shadow began to creep across the floor of the room, a shadow shaped like an arm with extremely long alien fingers that ended in hook like claws. The shadow stretched further and further into the room and crept up the back of the couch where the Alpha slept with his mate. Impossibly, the shadow went up and down the other side and came to rest over Stiles' face, causing him to moan softly in his sleep while his dreams took a darker turn.

_'Yes…this one…he is the one…he will die for us…he will free us…" _a deep and inhuman voice whispered gently into the room.

_'Himmm? This boy? Can he be the one?'_ this voice was high and feminine, and echoed down through the fireplace.

_'Can it be true? Will we finally be free?'_ This voice was masculine, but with a distinct southern accent.

The voices ceased their chatter, and the shadow hand seemed to grip the face beneath it. Stiles let out a whine. Somewhere in his dream (which had started off as usual with Derek doing a slow strip tease, for some reason surrounded by penguins) Stiles felt an alien force grip hold of the fabric of his dream and twist it into a new shape. He was suddenly in the master bedroom of the house, high above on the top floor. He had never been in this room, but somehow knew exactly what and where it was. An enormous four poster bed dominated the room, and Stiles lay with his body under the heavy blankets looking at the door of the enormous closet directly across from him.

'Who puts a closet right in front of a bed? That's so creepy. What if that door slowly swung open while you were lying there, what if a Shape stood there illuminated by moonlight, or just a pair of glowing red eyes? What if some black thing with horns charged out of that closet right at the bed, and you were trapped under the covers while it leapt into the air, jaws agape and claws outstretched? You could hide under the covers, and that might protect you, or it might not. Maybe the Thing would stand there by your bed while you struggled to keep from pissing yourself in fright, too terrified to peek out lest it snatch the covers away and leave you defenseless? You would just spend the night lying there, hearing it breathe, hearing it chuckle as it enjoyed its game and waited until just the right moment to give in to its terrible hunger and feast? You could almost hear it whisper…'I am here…really here…just open your eyes…and see…'

Sometimes the thing wasn't in the closet. Sometimes it was under the bed, waiting to snatch at your ankle and pull you under the bed with it, into the magic passage that connected to the nightmarish world it came from. Sometimes Stiles would be asleep and have the distinct impression of something sitting on his chest, grinning and waiting for him to open his eyes. Other times, it felt as if whatever was under the bed had begun gently pulling at the blankets, causing him to clutch at them before they were pulled all the way to the foot of the bed.

It was a game that these Boogeymen played with kids…a game where neither side seemed willing to cross a certain line. The Boogeyman _couldn't_ get you as long as you had your blankets, as long as your eyes were closed, as long as you kept your ankle out of its reach. You had to…give it an opening of some kind. It seemed even monsters had rules. Not that it was above cheating…

Stiles did then what he had done the last time he had this dream when he was just a little boy. At six years of age, after being terrorized by his own imagination for months, he pulled back the covers and stomped his feet on the floor as he slid out of bed.

"Come on you fucker. Try it. Just try it. Go on, grab my ankles." His mouth was set into a hard line, and his eyes glittered as he balled his fists and waited.

Nothing grabbed his ankles.

Stiles walked (he didn't run…he somehow knew running was one of the things that let it come for you) slowly to the light switch and flicked it on. He dropped to his knees and peeked under the bed. Nothing. Then he walked over to his closet (sensibly placed to the far right of the bed) and braced himself, gritting his teeth. He yanked the door open and let out a roar, a challenge that the monster would have to answer or back down. Nothing within but clothes.

"Good thing for you." Stiles would mutter before slamming the door. Since that time, the nightmares never bothered him. He had discovered a great secret…it was the _fear_ that killed you, the fear that let it break whatever rules or cross whatever boundaries kept it from eating children all over the world every single night. He would just face anything he was afraid of in life, and try to take a piece of it with him. Without fail, he always found that his fear was far greater than the actual object, and that if he ran at it straight on it would lose its power to harm him.

Now, as he dreamed in this spiderweb of a house…this venus-flytrap of souls…he remembered that great secret and put it to the test.

He slid to the floor, stomping both feet down.

"Come on you fucker. Try it. Just try it. Go on, grab my ankles."

Only this time, something did.

A blackened hand with alien fingers and hooked claws shot out and wrapped itself around Stiles leg. It gave a mighty tug, nearly toppling him to the floor. An inhuman roar came from under the bed.

Stiles, somehow knowing that this time was going to be different and planning for it, simply brought his other foot up and smashed it down onto that black hairy arm with all his might.

The thing gave a high pitched chittering screech and released its hold, the hand disappearing back under the bed.

Stiles was hyperventilating in his dream, but he was also grinning a ferocious grin. His eyes were very dark, and had Derek been there to see his face, he would have recognized it at once. This was a monster that lived within him that had nothing to do with the wolf…and it _always_ got even.

Stiles walked over to the closet then, yanking the door open. Lightning flashed as the silvery moonlight illuminated the goat-headed man. It gave off its bleat/growl, and raised up its arms, intending to wrap them around the boy in one final terrible hug.

Stiles' face was pale with fury, with rage that this _thing _desecrated the world with its presence. It wasn't supposed to be here, shouldn't be _allowed_ to be here, there were dark places in other worlds, other dimensions that were given to it…it had strayed from its place to come here, and now it had to pay the price.

As the thing leaned down towards him, Stiles reached up and grabbed the long black horns with his hands, wrenching with all his might. One horn bent, while the other gave off a splintering crack. The thing shrieked and tried to pull back, but Stiles braced his feet on either side of the closet door, trying to pull it fully into the room. It singed and burned then as it passed the doorway; it could only exist here when the air was tainted with fear, and there was none present within the room or within this boy…just white-hot righteous hatred. Stiles wrenched again, and this time both horns broke off and the creature hurtled into the room where it fizzled out like hair held too close to a candle flame.

Stiles spit into the closet. "Fucking weakling." he said contemptuously. He slammed the closet door in the dream, and suddenly started awake next to Derek. His other-self slipped back down into the basement of his mind (where all true monsters live) and the memory of the dream left him.

Stiles looked around the room, noticed that everyone was still sleeping including Derek and relaxed back onto the couch. He sighed deeply. The last thing he wanted to have in this freaky place was a nightmare. He pulled out his phone from his pants pocket once more and used the only function on it that still worked; the camera. He had uploaded a few personal pictures to his phone, and now looked at one that always made him feel better when things got bad. A picture of his mother.

_Somewhere deep in the otherspace that connected this point on earth, this house to a world where nightmares walked needing no shadows to hide them, the goat-headed thing mewled as it nursed its wounds. It had deeply underestimated the boy, and had only just barely managed to retreat before it was destroyed. Had that confrontation taken place on the physical plane where the rules were very different, the monster would have been no more. But in dreams, anything was possible, even escape from a force more powerful than itself. Things were going according to plan with the others. Having given in to their fears, it held the minds of the young boy and girl captive within itself. They would never wake while it lived, and thanks to their nearly immortal bodies, the sustenance they provided was far more potent than those pathetic humans that shriveled and died so easily. All of the others of this fascinating race of shape-changers had given in to some degree, they just waited to be taken, even their leader whose fear for his mate was greatest of all. Perhaps when it had all of them, it would be strong enough to handle the wretched brat that hurt it so badly. But to do that, it would need to enlist the help of the others that dwelt here with it…_


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N – OK, so apparently some of you guys have decided to name the villain of this piece 'Goat-Dude', which is as good a name as any lol. Weirdly, I googled goat-headed fear-demons, and wouldn't you know it? Someone had the idea first! If you'd like to see a (cartoon) picture of this guy, look up 'Mongor' on the Thundercats wiki. He even fights heroes who are half-animal! Nothing new under the sun, folks. But the real question is, why would two separate people come up with that idea, unless somewhere deep inside, we KNOW he really exists somewhere….Bwa ha ha! I do not own Teen Wolf, but I DO own Mong- um, I mean Goat-Dude.**_

Derek woke up and was greeted by the sight of two very wonderful things. The first was the sunlight that was pouring into the room. The second was his mate snoring gently on the couch beside him, alive and well and ready to get the hell out of this den of horror. One sniff told Derek that the Pack was all there. He listened to their hearts…Jackson and Lydia were still unconscious, the beats very slow. The others were merely asleep, except for Scott who was awake and alert.

"Morning Derek." The head Beta said. He also heard Derek's heart speed up.

"That's _good_ morning. Good because we are leaving." Derek stood and stretched. He rubbed his stiff neck, sighing when his healing factor washed it away.

"Put on a shirt, man. Nobody wants to see that." Scott almost smiled.

"_Au contraire_. He is actually wearing far too many clothes." Stiles yawned and gave his head a mild twist, his neck crackling. "Remind me to destroy this couch."

"Let Jackson's father do it, along with the rest of the place." This from Danny. "And I agree with Stiles about the excess of clothes." he told Scott.

Scott rolled his eyes. He gently nudged Allison awake, while Danny did the same with Ted.

"Anyone want me to make them breakfast before we leave? If you want a hot shower, I'm sure there's time." Ted joked. Stiles snickered at that.

An examination of Lydia revealed that her injuries had disappeared, though they could not rouse her or her mate. Scott picked up Jackson and placed him gently over his shoulder while Derek did the same with Lydia.

They all suspected, though they didn't voice it aloud, that the front door would be sealed shut, and they all breathed a sigh of relief when it opened easily. The relief lasted for a few seconds until they stepped outside.

"What the hell?" Derek looked around, blinking his eyes as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.

The sky was red shading towards orange. The last stars in their alien configurations were just fading away as the 'sun' continued to rise. Only it wasn't really a sun, more like a giant glowing yellow eye beginning to peek at them from beyond the edge of the world.

"We are so _fucked_!" Danny shouted. Ted tried to put a hand on his arm, but Danny flinched away. "We're not even on freaking Earth anymore! What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

"The goat-dude. This must be where he comes from. We're in his freaking world now. No wonder the phones don't work. I don't think there are any satellites up there…" Stiles walked a little way down the driveway where the tarmac was all torn up, trying to peer through the gates. Within the estate, the grass, trees and other flora were still there, but beyond the boundary of the gates, there was just dead black earth for as far as he could see. No feature was visible anywhere in that desolation. "This place must connect to the house back home, somehow. Which means that if today is Halloween, we have 24 hours to get back home before Jackson's dad demolishes the place. I don't want to worry you guys but…"

"Don't say it, Stiles. Just please don't say it." Scott muttered. "Let's go back inside. There has to be some clue in there about how to get back home."

Five minutes later, Jackson and Lydia were once again reclining on their couches while the rest of the Pack debated their next course of action.

"If there's a library, maybe there are some books that could help us. Stiles, come with me while the rest of you stay here and guard the Sleeping Beauties"

The Pack agreed and the two set off. They went up the stairs to the second floor, and tried each door they came to. The rooms were mostly filled with clutter and junk under sheets, but in one freaky instance, Stiles opened a door and stepped through only to come _out_ of the door on the opposite side.

"Stiles! Don't do stuff like that!" shouted Derek.

"Der, this shows us that space is warped here. That's how Lydia got to the second floor from the bathroom. I bet the goat-dude controls it somehow. If there's something he doesn't want us to find in that library, then we may not even have a chance-" Stiles voice cut off as he opened the next door. "Huh! Library." Derek followed him into the room and looked around. Books lined shelves from floor to incredibly high ceiling, with rolling ladders attached to tracks on each wall. Floor mounted bookcases created aisles that stretched far ahead of them.

"So either I was wrong about that thing controlling the house, or…"

Derek finished the thought. "Or, it deliberately let us find it because there's no way in hell we could find what we need in time. Fan-fucking-tastic. I am never watching a horror movie again. 'The Notebook' sucks, but _this_ stuff never happens in chick-flicks."

"Well, we're here so let's look anyway." Stiles walked over to a section that seemed to be a collection of fantasy novels. "Holy crap, this is so bizarre!" he called out a minute later.

Derek ran over to him quickly, his heart pounding. "What?"

Stiles pointed to a shelf. "The complete eight-volume set of the Chronicles of Narnia. They were my favorite books when I was a kid."

Derek stared at him for a second. "SO?"

"Derek, there are only _seven_ books in the series! _This_ one doesn't exist!" Stiles picked up a book titled 'The Return of Queen Susan'.

"Fascinating, Sty. You can read it after we get trapped here forever and tell me how it turns out." Derek turned around and walked away…before spinning on his heel and coming back.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

"Yes. And I love you too, you big jerk." Stiles hugged his mate and they separated to search the shelves as rapidly as they could. After an hour of searching, they both brought their finds back to the ball room and handed out the books they thought might be relevant to the Pack. Derek had some local history books concerning Beacon Hills, Ted had some books covering supernatural phenomena, Danny was looking at stuff relating to monsters in folklore and Scott was staring buggy-eyed at a Quantum Physics book on String Theory and Alternate Dimensions, perhaps understanding a word on every sixth or seventh page. Allison chuckled and took the book from him and began to leaf through it, handing her mate some genealogy records of the Pheer family.

"Stiles, what are you reading? If it's that Narnia book, I'm chucking it straight into the fire." Derek grumped at him.

"Ha-ha. I'm reading the diary of Annabella Pheer. She's talking about what a jerk her husband is, boy can I sympathize!" Stiles teased while Derek just growled menacingly. "Love you too, Der. Anyway, it says here that he accused her of adultery, said the kid she had wasn't his."

"They had a kid? That's weird. The book I read before didn't mention it. I thought they died childless."

"No, she got pregnant right away after they moved in, though it says…ah, here it is. 'I thought to bide a while when Manfred was called away before consummating our love in the home he helped build with his own hands. But that night, he came to me and loved me as I lay alone and afraid in my marriage bed; I rejoiced when he stepped from the closet where he had been hiding, no doubt to surprise me. I have never known such ardor in a man. He was gone when I awoke the next morn, no doubt to attend to affairs long neglected.'"

Stiles flipped a few pages. "Oh. Manfred denied returning that night, and he figured she had an affair with a servant or something. When the baby came…'a girl child dark of hair and eye and having none of the yellow cornsilk hair and grey eyes that were the defining traits of the Pheers for generations, he took this as final proof of my infidelity.' Hmmm, he stormed around the house a lot, which pissed her off…the servants joked that 'Pheer was pregnant, and her child was rage.' Nothing much after that, just a lot of nasty remarks about him, right up until the Halloween Ball."

"What happened to the kid after they died?" asked Ted.

"Shipped off to relatives." Scott said. "Annabella's mother's family took her in, since the Pheers wanted nothing to do with her with the paternity in doubt. Hmm, they named the girl Stella, Stiles. She got married in 1930 and had a son named…Genim."

Stiles turned around slowly to look at Scott. "Dude, if that's a practical joke, it is seriously not funny."

Scott showed them all the book. "Genim Charles Latham. Latham was your mother's maiden name.

Stiles just turned away from them and stared into the fire.

Derek noticed a subtle change in Stiles' scent, and it made him nervous. "Who cares if you're descended from them, Sty. None of this is-"

"Der, if you say none of this is my fault, _I'm_ going to rip out your throat with _my_ teeth. This is all my fault from start to finish."

"There's other things in this book too, Stiles. They were all known for having vicious tempers when crossed. They also all got…sick…none of them made it to their fiftieth birthday."

"Well, that's not going to happen to me. Werewolf, remember?" Stiles said tonelessly.

"Guys, what she said in that diary is bothering me. She thought her husband came out of the closet…um, you know what I mean, an _actual_ closet…you don't think that…" Danny left the thought unfinished.

The implications of Danny's remark stunned them all into silence. Stiles got up and walked towards the doors of the ball room.

"Sty! Where are you going?" Derek ran over and reached for his arm. He stopped himself at the last minute. Something told the Alpha it wouldn't be a good idea.

"I need to be alone, Der. Goat-Dude hasn't tried anything on me so far, and if there is something to the bullshit in those books, there might be a reason why. If you love me, then just let me be right now."

They watched him leave. Derek just stood there, staring after him, wishing he could help but not knowing what to do.

"I told him it would be bad idea to mess with this stuff." Danny muttered.

Derek was across the room in an instant, his eyes burning with crimson fury. Ted was suddenly up and blocking Derek's path to a frightened Danny.

"This is _not_ his fault, _Beta._" Derek snarled at him.

"Derek, chill _way_ out." Ted said quietly. "Please. The last thing we need is to fight with each other. We need you to look after us, not beat us into submission."

"He's right, Derek." Scott and Allison moved to stand on either side of Ted.

"Then you will all respect his position in this Pack. If anyone is to blame here, it's me. I'm the Alpha. You're all my responsibility…and now I've failed you twice." The crimson light faded from his eyes, and the rest of the Pack could see the guilt that was eating away at him.

"Derek, the decision was actually left to me. And instead of having the balls to say yes or no, I flipped a damn coin. I could easily say the blame is mine." Ted said quietly.

"And I voted yes…even though I really didn't want to. I thought I was being a good friend to Stiles." Allison came over to Derek and put her hand on his shoulder.

"I'm the head Beta…I should have been a better influence on him, I'm his best friend." Scott sat across from Derek.

They all looked at Danny. "What?" he asked. "Sorry, can't play the blame game with you guys. I was against it and said so from the beginning. But…look, it doesn't matter. We're all Pack, and if one or more of us screw up, then we work together to fix it. Right?"

The rest of them nodded.

Scott picked up the genealogy book. "What this said about the Lathams having bad tempers. That's not Stiles. I've never seen him flip out at anybody like that…except when he slugged Jackson at the High School when Peter was after us. I couldn't believe he did that, but I guess he was just worried about his dad."

"I've seen it." Derek said quietly. The others looked at him.

"You are never to mention this to him, he doesn't remember. That Christmas when I…you know. When I found him out in the snow and made it through the Mountain Ash trees…he attacked me. I've never seen him like that before. He almost killed me, in fact. He would have, if not for…"

Derek's eyes widened.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Don't get your hopes up, but there's something I just thought of that might help. Scott, are there any pictures of Stiles' mother in that genealogy book?"

Scott looked confused. "No, the history ends with his grandfather. Why?"

Derek looked around, and spotted Stiles' phone on the couch where it had fallen out of his pocket. Derek picked it up and flipped it open, cursing when he saw the battery was at 10% power. The charger was in Stiles' Bumblebee…in another universe.

"The phones don't work, Derek." Scott told him, wide-eyed.

Derek punched in the code to unlock the phone (his own name) and quickly scanned the saved pictures hoping the battery would last long enough for his desperate idea to work.

"Stay here. I'll be right back." Derek left and made his way to the kitchen. When he arrived, he found what he was looking for. An old picture of Stella Stilinski smiling into the camera.

"Stella…you said to me once that if I ever needed a favor I could call on you. Oh boy do we need you now! Please help us."

The lights in the room dimmed and flickered. The cell phone grew very warm in his hands. Derek almost thought he detected a voice on the very outer edge of his hearing, a feminine voice. He couldn't make out the words, but he thought it might be a question from the tone. It was coming from the cell phone. Derek placed it directly against his ear, the picture still displayed on the screen.

"I can't hear you! We aren't on Earth, we're in some alternate place, the old Pheer House!"

The phone gave a warning tone in his ear, and Derek looked at the depleted battery bar, completely panicked now. The phone was about to shut itself off…for good. Then the lights dimmed some more, and an arc of electricity shot out of the overhead fixture and struck the phone, causing Derek to drop it. He cursed, grabbing it up again and hoping it wasn't broken. The battery bar rapidly filled up while he watched. Then the text message indicator beeped a short rondo he recognized as 'Jingle Bells'.

Did you say Pheer House? The text was sent by an unknown number.

Derek typed as fast as he could, explaining the situation.

Where are you in the house? Are you alone? I'm trying to home in on your signal. came the swift response.

Yes. The kitchen. He answered back.

_I'm coming._

The fixtures in the room slowly began to vibrate, the cupboard doors swinging open and the dishes rattling on their shelves. The giant refrigerator was shaking violently, and the big window (so recently repaired by the diabolical forces of the house) developed a huge diagonal crack and then shattered completely. Even the floor under his feet was rumbling.

Something was pouring through the broken window, gathering in the air in the center of the kitchen… a sense of heat and light coalescing into a tight glowing ball that suddenly exploded outward, knocking Derek across the room and into a wall. Dazed, he slid to the floor.

A hand reached down to him, and Derek took it. He was easily pulled to his feet. A woman with jet black hair and the darkest eyes stood there, wearing a Christmas-themed apron.

"Mr. Hale. Do you have any idea what you lot have gotten yourselves involved in now? Mercy me, trouble does seem to find you werewolves, doesn't it? I don't need to tell you that my coming here has broken a _truckload_ of rules!" her face had a very severe expression on it.

Derek wanted to cry with relief at the sight of her. He threw his arms around her and hugged her tight. She was surprised for a moment, then her features softened and she returned the hug, a tear coming to her own face.

"Well, I was going to teach you a lesson for allowing my son to put himself in danger again…but there never was any stopping him when he was determined to do something silly. And besides…you're my son too now and I intend to treat you that way. Which means anything that tries to hurt you _dies._"

Derek stepped back from her.

"Stella, I know this doesn't mean anything, but I'm so sorry I let him talk me into coming here…I had no idea that-"

"-ghosts existed?" She gave him an ironic smile. Derek looked down at the floor.

"Well, you have far more to worry about than ghosts, although I intend to sort them out as well. I have a lot to tell you, and this is stuff they don't bother keeping secret from you once you've passed on, so no blabbing to anyone else! The thing that dwells here was able to use the construction of this house and the negative energy of its history to poke through into our world, which connects to its own in just the one spot. In fact, from here you can get to quite a few alternate universes. But only in the one you and I call home was that creature able to set a plan into action that could free it from this world to roam ours forever. This absolutely cannot be allowed to happen, at any cost. Our world is hostile to it. Its essence cannot survive without its physical form there, though it can create illusions and touch minds and even make things happen. When the house is destroyed, it will be stuck here forever as you boys surmised. It was only through purest chance that you happened to put victory in its grasp."

"What's going on? How does it intend to get free?" Derek asked.

"It feeds on souls, on life force for sustenance. Anchoring the Pheers here as ghosts allowed it to feed and survive for years, and its power is already growing even stronger from the banquet Jackson and Lydia's enhanced werewolf life-forces are providing it. It can feed off of a living person if it can terrorize them enough; fear is it's gateway into us. When night falls, it will come for you all at full strength. But it wants _more_ than sustenance…it wants _power_, the power to free itself, and that it can only get from feeding off its _own_ children and taking their power for itself. My namesake is the daughter of that creature, and it intended to kill her when she was born and escape, but it failed to appreciate the nuances of society that led to the child's removal from the house after her parents died. Its…essence…bonding with a human caused some problems as well. The children were never as viable as normal human stock, and prone to lethal cancers at an early age. Also…as you have seen…we are given to terrible rages. I did a few things I wasn't proud of as a teenager, let's just leave it at that. Now, there are actually two gateways, and each one only works one-way. The gate that _leads_ here is the gateway to the estate at the bottom of the driveway. I hate to say it, but the only reason you all came through is that Stiles unwittingly opened the way for you. The gateway that leads to Earth…_our_ Earth, is the closet of the master bedroom on the top floor. It is open partway, but for any of you to leave it has to be opened completely. You will have to kill the creature first, it will never allow you to leave otherwise and that is the only way to restore Jackson and Lydia. Also, only a descendant of that creature could hope to open the gate, meaning Stiles or myself. Mr. Hale…son, Stiles must be kept alive at all costs. Otherwise, the creature will consume his life-force and escape through the gate, and you will all be trapped here. The thing _has_ to kill Stiles, it can't terrorize him to feed on his life-force, since that would trigger…the family temper."

"What about you? Can it use you to escape? You're already…you know." Asked Derek, still trying to assimilate everything Stella had just told him.

"I'd like to see it try. No, it's the act of killing, or causing the death in some way that would let it feed. I died quite peacefully elsewhere of natural causes, and I retained the power to cross dimensional boundaries I was born with…how else do you think I'm able to break so many rules? They quite don't know what to do with me on the other side."

"What should we do now?"

"I'll deal with the ghosts, but Stiles will have to kill the creature. Your job will be to get your Pack to the master bedroom and through that closet door, keeping everyone alive until you can escape. Stiles will fight the creature, and you must help him as much as you can. The creature will try to take more of you…you _must_ keep the others from fearing. Good luck with that. Now go and tell the Pack what you will. Above all, stay together. Your race is strong, and even stronger when you are together. I doubt the creature ever encountered werewolves before, so it may be unprepared for a united front."

"Got it. Stella? Thank you. I wish to God you could be around all the time. It would make Stiles…and me…so happy."

"Thank you…I appreciate hearing that. But go on now. I have two swamp dogs and their mistress to deal with, and you have…Goat-Dude? Keep the phone and text me if you need me. Good luck."

She faded away, and Derek went back to the ball room to get the others ready. They were relieved to see him, though Stiles was still not back.

"Let's go. We need to find Stiles and get the hell out of here. I know how we can escape."

The Pack cheered, and Allison started crying with relief. Scott hugged her, and Danny gave a pleased Ted a kiss full on the lips. As they looked at him, he realized how much they were really counting on him to save them, and that they had 100% confidence that he could do it. This is what it meant to be an Alpha…to be able to earn and maintain the trust that others put in you. He vowed again as he had a hundred times before, never to betray that trust.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N - Hey guys, sorry for the short chapter, but I wanted to get this teaser out before working on the rest in earnest tomorrow. I had a bunch of family over today which side-tracked me, and it's now 1 am (yawn). This has been a blast writing, but not as much as seeing some of your reviews which I appreciate beyond words. Hope you enjoy.**_

Stiles strode through the house, not really paying any attention to where he was going. On some level, he knew this was incredibly dangerous. The goat-thing could come for him at any time…but part of him wanted to meet it, the thing that had killed innocent people, the thing that had hurt Jackson and Lydia and trapped his friends, the thing that just might possibly be his great-great-grandfather. He felt sick with guilt, and frustrated that Derek (with his constant over-protectiveness) tried to patronize him by saying it wasn't his fault that they were here. Who knew but that his heritage might have given him some kind of subconscious drive to return here? That would almost be a relief compared to the alternative: the dumb idea was all his alone. Either way, he was responsible.

The more miserable he made himself, the angrier he became. Why was his life always so _fucking_ traumatic? First, he loses his mother… the most wonderful human being on earth, the one who loved him more than anything, more than her own life. And she _had _to be taken from him. Then along comes Peter goddamned Hale, the evil Alpha that turned his life upside down. Sure, he got through that business as well thanks to his friends, but that was also down to sheer luck. You'd think that would be enough adventure for anybody, you'd think that the gods would look down and say "Gee Stiles, we gave you some crap hands in the card game of life, here's a nice winning lottery ticket! But oh, no. Now he gets his friends stuck in a dimension that looked like the inspiration for the people that built Hell, with virtually no way to escape that he could think of. Their food supplies were practically gone, and it wouldn't be too long before they all went crazy and killed each other or else starved to death, or got killed by the creatures that walked here.

The thoughts whirled around and around in his head, sick fury collecting into a hard knot in his stomach and seeming to push itself upward. He dimly remembered feeling this sensation once before, the night Derek threw him out of his house…

?

Stiles stopped in mid stride. He had never really examined the events of that night in his memory, he was just happy that Derek had found him when he…

?

_How the hell had he gotten out there in the snow?_

Stiles struggled to remember. Derek had thrown him out…then,,,something about his neck. Stiles reached around and touched the back of his neck as he had done that long ago night. He had looked at the blood on his finger…and that was the last thing he remembered. He felt that same anger that night, and it seemed to push up into his brain and blot out everything else. And then…

…then he was standing over a naked Derek with a large branch in his hand, and Derek was injured. Had Stiles struck him? Yes, he thought he might have. Maybe several times, and then…Derek mentioned his Mom, and how she always worried about him going outside without his jacket. She was so fussy over him, like he would break if she weren't careful. Kind of how like Derek was ever since that night. As well he should be, since it was his fucking fault Stiles was out there in the first…

Stiles growled, and his hand shot out and punched a hole in the nearest wall, taking out a good sized chunk of drywall. There, moldering away for who knew how many years, was a skeleton in the remains of an archaic looking workman's uniform. Stiles looked at it, and when the skeleton suddenly lurched to its feet, its bones clattering to a hideous attention, he only felt his anger increase. Here was the next event in the Stiles Stilinski Horror Hit Parade. The old walled-up by accident workman coming back to life to seek bloody revenge against the living, who just happened to be Stiles, the Boy-Who-Never-Had-Enough-Fucked-Up-Shit-In-His-Life.

Stiles growled again, his eyes burning a furious yellow, before the left one suddenly dimmed to a dead black. Fangs pushed their way through his gums…but not the fangs of a Beta werewolf. These fangs were one and all the triangular teeth of a shark, and with a hideous crackling sound, a second row pushed out from behind the first. And then a third. Stiles felt his right ear stretching into a point. The left one remained human…but his left temple began to throb with a hideous pressure. The Beta claws slid smoothly out from his fingertips…but on his left hand, the claws grew an extra inch and became hooked.

As the skeleton's hands lunged forward to wrap themselves around Stiles' neck, Stiles grabbed the bony arms with a strength to rival the Alpha's. He snapped the bones like twigs, and then grabbed the cobwebbed rib cage and pulled the skeleton from its resting place. Slamming it down onto the floor, he brought his foot down on the skull, whose mouth was open in a silent scream.

_SLAM!_

The skull vaporized, and Stiles fell to in a frenzy, breaking the skeleton and pulling apart the bones and smashing them to bits until nothing was left but a heap of dust and some shreds of clothing. A horn burst through his left temple, the skin quickly healing around it while it pushed upward, black and sleek and dripping with blood.

Stiles looked up, grinning insanely. A strange sensation filled him as the two monsters in his soul struggled to fit together. The essence of the creature that tormented them in this house was never meant to bind with the human race; the two species were too alien too each other, leading to genetic anomalies (like ADHD) and the early deaths of the offspring as the human half finally broke down into the disordered chaos of cancer. But the essence of the werewolf is to make everything about its host stronger, and it easily adapted to the strange alien genes within Stiles…genes that would have destroyed him eventually if not for the relentless and powerful life force the werewolf bestowed. What was once a young boy was now a creature that had never existed before and likely never would again…if the multi-verse survived his presence.

Stiles hyperactive mind began to work at a lightning fast clip as he pondered his next course of action. Destroying his enemy was of utmost importance. If that skeleton was the best the goat-thing had to throw at him, then Stiles was going to have no problem taking it apart. But the wolfish instinct within him preached caution. Taking on a powerful enemy alone was not the way of the werewolf; he needed a Pack.

He sent his awareness down through the house. He sensed his old Pack there, fearful and weak, two already being consumed by his enemy. They would be of no use to him; fear only fed his foe. He needed a Pack that was beyond fear. Without knowing quite how he was doing it, he sent his mind into a dozen other worlds that connected to this hell-dimension, alternate timelines that contained analogs of his old Pack. The first world he looked into contained a nearly identical history to his own, but the relationships had all turned out different. Here Derek was dating Jackson, Scott was with Lydia, Allison in love with Ted and Danny mated to Stiles.

In another, Peter Hale was victorious against the Argents, with Scott and Derek his rabid followers and lovers. Together they slaughtered all of the residents of Beacon Hills before going on to the next town where Peter infected everyone with the bite in the first Act of what would eventually be a Werewolf Armageddon.

A third world was amusing in its own way. The Hale fire had never happened, and the Pack had never even discovered the existence of werewolves. Derek and Laura were married to werewolves from another Pack and led carefree untroubled lives.

The fourth world…ahhhhh! Now here was an interesting prospect. In this world, Stiles was dead, having frozen to death in the snowstorm nearly a year ago. He watched with morbid interest the events that led to this, finally filling in the missing gap in his memory…but Derek never came for him, having slept the clock around and learning of his fate the following morning when he was confronted by a bitter and angry Pack. Over time, they descended into madness, eventually slaughtering an emotionally crippled Derek along with anyone that had ever crossed Stiles. They gave themselves over to worshipping his memory while torturing each other and themselves.

These guys were _perfect._ Let his enemy play at conquest with fear, a mere child's toy…Stiles would use rage, a far more potent weapon.

Stiles made his way to a music room on the fourth floor. The room was filled with every type of musical instrument conceivable, including some that were never seen on Earth. In one corner stood a lone grandfather clock. Stiles pointed his finger at the clock and twirled his finger around until he reached the point in time he wanted in this parallel Earth before opening the glass door and entering.

{}{}{}{}

The Nega-Pack emerged from the burning Hale house, giving the hanging body of Derek Hale only a passing glance as they gathered on the front lawn. Stiles emerged from the grandfather clock in the foyer of the burning home, and the Pack shouted in surprise when they saw him, a half-demon/half-werewolf coming through the flaming doorway…it must have made quite an image.

They took in his visage silently, not daring to speak lest they offend what looked like their very god come from Hell.

"Hey guys!" Stiles said brightly.

Scott fell to his knees, tears flowing into his thick beard as he shoved his unruly hair away from his eyes.

"St-Stiles? H-how?" he began. Stiles cut him off.

"No time for chit-chat, since you guys decided to burn the only portal to this place. Somebody fucked with me, and I need you to help kill him. Who's with me?"

They all cheered, and Lydia actually came over to him and groveled at his feet, whining for attention. Stiles kicked her away. "Get up, R-tart. This is a highly dangerous mission. Some of you may die. Others will face their worst fears, a torture beyond imagining. So, if you're into that kind of thing, let's go!"

Stiles walked back into the house followed by the giggling and leering doubles of his friends. They entered the grandfather clock after him, not questioning the bizarre events…but just ecstatic that their loyalty and servitude was about to be acknowledged and rewarded.

After they all entered, a chunk of ceiling fell and destroyed the clock, a small kindness done to this otherwise horrific world.


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N – I had a PM that said I never seem to have the nerve to kill off my characters. Sorry guys, I'm not J.K. Rowling. I love them like they were my brothers and sisters…but I think I found a work-around.**_

The Eye of Leng blazed down on this dimension of walking horrors (known as Broken Vrul in ancient texts seized by the Inquisition and buried in the Catacombs beneath the Vatican) before slowly sinking below the horizon. At the same time, all the power in the house went out. As darkness seemed to fill the open spaces of the house like a living thing, Jackson and Lydia each gave out a low cry as their life forces were drained almost to the dregs by the entity that wore the shape of a goat-headed man, known as Ka-deth…the last of a race of beings who devoured whole worlds in eons past.

The entity could have killed the unconscious werewolves, but win or lose it would likely not come by such rich soul-energy in the future. The Earth-dimension it sought to overcome had precious few of the shape-changing race left within it, and it did not wish to destroy more of them than was absolutely necessary.

But now…it sensed the presence of Others. Its bastard descendant had unexpectedly awakened to his own dormant trans-dimensional ability, further bolstered by the essence of the powerful animal spirit within him. Against all possibility, the whelp had the power the thing itself did not; to leave this accursed prison on a whim. Fortunately, he had not abandoned his friends and escaped... as he well could have. Instead, he brought the analogs of his own Pack from one of the other alternate universes in polar array around Pheer House. It seemed his progeny sought to wage a war. Very well then. If it was war he wanted, then war he shall have.

The entity drew upon vast reserves of power it had not needed for thousands of years. It took hold of the very fabric of reality that made up the house and unleashed the darkest horrors it had gleaned from the minds of mankind since the day the wretched species had learned to fear.

All of the Pack sensed it, and knew that they would be attacked at any moment. Derek sent a quick text to his ghostly ally, asking that she travel with them (invisibly if she had to) in order to keep the Pack as safe as possible. But the revenant of Stella Stilinski could not answer…she was extremely busy.

{}{}{}{}

The hounds came for her as she traveled towards the swamp. They had been reformed by the goat thing at some cost to its own power, while it considered what to do with the strange interloper. Stella was not afraid of dogs in the slightest; she had once brutalized an untrained and unleashed pit bull that attacked her son when he was very small, doing the same to the dog's owner when he protested. Steven had chided her…about the owner. Stiles had not been seriously injured, but he was terribly upset…and one look at his childlike face let her know that her son had inherited the family temperament. If Stiles had been just a little bit older, the dog might have been dead by the time she arrived.

The two undead mastiffs reached her at the same time, and Stella directed a small portion of her own power at them, filling it with the rage that took her over twenty years of her life to control and channel. The first hound exploded as if it had swallowed a grenade. The second was flattened as if crushed by two enormous invisible stones. Unfortunately, this allowed the rotting form of Annabella Pheer (recently risen from her watery grave) to grab her by the neck with her decomposing hands.

When Stella had destroyed the shade of Kate Argent (better than the strumpet deserved; oblivion was far more merciful than damnation), it had been no contest since they had essentially the same weapon. But where Kate only _thought_ she was fury personified, Stella knew it for a solid fact. Kate was a mere star to Stella's supernova. Annabella Pheer, infected as she was by the essence of the entity, was a much more capable adversary…she just had no means to vent it alive in a world ruled by men where it was unknown for women to be trained in the use of arms. Here in this world, emotions were weapons themselves, and Mistress Pheer tore at Stella's essence with her own inhuman rage. Stella fought back, expending a great deal of her own power to burn off the damage. The two women were very nearly evenly matched…but destroying the dogs had weakened Stella significantly and Annabella had a definite edge. Stella found herself being pulled towards the swamp and struggled to no avail, despite her mounting anger.

"Filthy despicable whore! You would keep me trapped here forever, just like that miserable excuse of a husband! I care not that you once shared my blood…you will die here a second time, a death that will last _forever!_" the rotting woman screeched.

"You hypocritical _bitch_! You're aiding the thing that destroyed your life and hurt your own family! _My family! I… WILL… NOT… ALLOW IT!" _Stella channeled her fury directly into the the dead woman's heart.

Annabella staggered, and had they not been so close to the edge of the quicksand, Stella might just have won free. But with the last dregs of her power, Annabella caused the muds to rise up and wrap themselves around Stella's form, pulling her down and sapping her strength at the same time. Annabella gave a burbling mocking laugh as they both were pulled beneath the surface, her arms locking irrevocably around Stella. Annabella intended to pull Stella into the very deepest reaches of the mud, farther down than she had ever dared to explore…and there she would imprison her in the wet and putrid darkness until this hell was frozen over.

But Stella Stilinsky was extremely resourceful, clever and intelligent even while she raged. She stopped fighting Annabella and instead channeled her remaining power into the dim and fluttering spirits that filled the bog, those Annabella had consumed over the years since her death, aided by the evil of Pheer House.

Three dozen sparks were lit as awareness returned to those who had served as food for Annabella and her hounds. The bog began to churn violently, bubbling like a witch's cauldron, the noisome fumes thankfully lost on the prisoners within.

A chorus of voices spoke into Stella's mind. "_What would you have us do?"_ they asked.

"Give me everything you've got, join your essences to mine and I'll see that you all escape this place!" Stella snarled at them.

Annabella squawked in sudden terror as she too felt her old victims unite and plunge themselves into the heart of Stella's soul.

"_NO!" _was all she had time to scream.

The bubbling of the bog ceased for a moment…then ripped itself apart in the spectral equivalent of a nuclear explosion. A huge crater, its bottom burned and black, was all that remained of the bog. The lonely decaying figure of Annabella Pheer tottered forlornly in its deepest point, looking up in terror at the ghostly giantess that was once Stella Stilinski. Her eyes were white, and lightning seemed to crackle from them as she gazed down at her would-be destroyer. Stella smiled, and it was fearsome enough to have given Ka-deth pause had it been there to see it. Stella reached down and wrapped her glowing white hand around the zombie who chittered in terror. The smile became a snarl as Stella squeezed, and with a snapping sound that echoed through at least three universes, Annabella Pheer was no more.

Sighing, Stella released the spirits she had so briefly used as sword and armor and returned to her more traditional form…a human sized female of striking beauty, wearing a Christmas-themed apron over her clothes.

"Thank you all. When we are ready to leave, I will call you."

She would have liked to have fought the goat-headed entity with their power, but that was her son's battle and she would not be helping him by fighting it for him. However, no one said she couldn't help his friends. Registering the communication that Derek had sent her through the link she maintained with his cell phone, she began to make her way back towards the house. She was expressly forbidden to show herself to anyone living besides Derek…which was going to limit what she could do for them. 'I guess I'll just have to make it up as I go!' she thought to herself. She stopped abruptly as another spirit suddenly appeared before her.

"_You."_ Stella growled.

"Me. It is a pleasure to meet you, great-granddaughter…although in truth I am no blood relation to you. It would have made me very proud to have you as kin. You are a force to be reckoned with."

"Yes, I am. What do you want? I am in something of a hurry, and I have a bit of planning to do as I go. If you get in my way, I'm afraid I'll be giving you some advice. It's usually the last thing people hear."

"I want to help you. I have served the Dark One long enough, and will not harm any of you, even if it means being trapped here. I also have a way around the problem you currently face. Will you listen?"

"Manfred Pheer, if you mean what you say, I will end your imprisonment. But I will not be taking my eyes off of you for a moment. Keep that _firmly_ in mind. Now, tell me what you will that you think you have that will help."

Stella listened to his words, and was stunned at the sheer brilliance of the plan. In another time and place, she might have hugged him.

"Let's do it! Come on, Great Grandpa! I will formally adopt you if this works!"

After mentally shooting a text to Derek, Stella raced along with Manfred to the house.

{}{}{}{}

Stiles emerged from the clock in the music room with the Nega-Pack following close behind. When they were all through, the clock shattered. None of them gave it even a passing glance.

Stiles turned to them, these twisted versions of people he had known for so long…but he was pretty twisted himself right at the moment. They all wore ragged clothing, and all were covered with layers of filth and blood. Jackson was sporting what must have been healing claw-marks on his left cheek, and he seemed to be deliberately keeping them from healing as well as they could have. Their eyes were as dead as their spirits.

He spoke to them, directly into their minds, using a fraction of his power to prevent the entity from over-hearing.

"So…basically I brought you all here to die for me. The monster I want to destroy looks like this half of me…only he's all goaty on both sides. I need you to draw it out, get it to attack you with its power…while I search for its physical body. If you distract it long enough, I can kill it before it even realizes what's happening. Anybody that survives can come back with me to a world where I'm still alive! Isn't that great!"

They all nodded eagerly, eyes beginning to glow with the feral light of the wolves within them.

"Awesome! The Goat-Dude is shielding its body somehow, so we better split up. If you see any of the other versions of yourselves, leave them alone. They'll probably think you're a trick anyway. Any questions?"

"Will this thing…kill us _painfully?_" Jackson asked.

Stiles looked at him. "Absolutely."

"Cool!" he grinned. As far gone as Stiles was, even he was a little disgusted when he noticed that Jackson was actually getting wood over this.

"Masochistic fuck." Scott laughed.

"Scotty, I want my best friend at my side. Let's go, buddy." They left the music room and scattered, taking different doors, stairwells, secret passages and even a dumb-waiter…and the house began to hunt them down one by one.

{}{}{}{}

Nega-Jackson climbed out of the dumb waiter, still trembling at the tight space, but rather disappointed that the house hadn't tried to kill him in it. He found himself in the kitchen, and looked around before spotting the refrigerator…and the echo of his own childhood phobia came back. He shivered with the delicious horror of it and opened the metal door, staring eagerly into the coffin-like space. He was probably making it too easy for the house, but he would never again have an opportunity to destroy himself in such a wonderful way. He pulled the fridge out and toppled it backward onto the floor. He noticed that the inside walls of the appliance were beginning to grow sharpened spikes. This was too good to be true! Jackson pulled the shreds of clothes from his body and stepped into the fridge naked, hissing in pleasure as the spikes shredded his feet. He quickly sat down and leaned back, the spikes now digging cruelly into backside. He pushed his hands on to two of the larger spikes. The pain was exquisite, but somehow not enough.

"This all you got?" he asked the house, somehow knowing that it could hear him. In response, the metal spikes began to heat up, sizzling and cauterizing his flesh even while they were embedded deep within him. Soon, he was fused to the inside of the fridge, his mind boiling with a psychotic mixture of agony, elation and lust.

"The d-door!" he shouted. With a clang, the tomb sealed itself shut while the glowing inside walls began to slowly press inward. Jackson shrieked in ecstasy as blades, fire and suffocation all fought each other savagely to kill him first.

{}{}{}{}

Nega-Lydia tried locked door after locked door before she got to the wardrobe room, drawn inside by a fading echo of her old fascination with clothes. The fanged mannequins were no longer being secretive with their movements, but openly approaching her as the door swung shut, locking her in. Their movements were jerky and spastic, their hooked claws swinging wildly through the air while they crowded her against the wall.

Lydia looked at them haughtily.

"Your outfits are all _so _last year. I suppose this is where I bite the big one. You know, I've always hated dummies."

She changed, and screeching like a wildcat she tore into the crowd of mannequins, not caring that they savagely raked her with fangs and claws…she was doing the same to them. Soon, quite a few of her attackers were headless, which stopped them not at all…and even the heads were still rolling themselves towards her, snapping their jaws at her rabidly. As the mass of bodies piled on top of her, she quieted, remembering the last 'party' she had with her Pack before they murdered Derek Hale in his own home. She shivered at the thought, and as her mind broke under the pressure, she lost herself in the pleasant fantasy that it was happening all over again. She was slowly torn apart in an ecstasy no less intense than Jackson's had been.

{}{}{}{}

Nega-Allison looked around excitedly at the treasure trove of music boxes she had discovered. She opened one shaped like a pyramid, and a banal tinkling melody enchanted her for a few minutes while the music wormed its way into her brain and took root there, even after she shut the box. Unable to blot it out, she tried to replace it with another melody that came from one shaped like a jeweled crown. It was a pleasant enough tune, but instead of blotting out the first one, the two melodies combined to create a discordant threnody that was sickening in its rapid pace and clashing counterpoints. Her head began to pound even as her heart began to race. A third box was opened, and the torture increased…but now she found herself moving her feet in time to a dance she didn't know…but her body did. She whirled gracefully over to another box, looking oddly like a refrigerator. When opened, it glowed from within while what looked like a burned corpse rotated slowly inside. The tunes meshed again, driving her to greater efforts of dance. She had trouble catching her breath, and the shift came on her which only made her dance that much more gracefully. More and more boxes were opened, and the headache increased until conscious thought was lost. She became nothing but the dance itself, and no one who appreciated that particular form of art could have kept themselves from weeping like children at the sheer beauty of it. In the minutes before her heart finally exploded with the strain, she danced like an angel.

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The twisted doubles of Danny and Ted knew they were breaking the rules by staying together, but if the house killed them, they wanted to die together. Though they were as broken as the rest of their Pack, something of the old feelings they had for each other still survived. None of the other werewolves ever knew (and failed to question, in the unintentional ignorance that often occurs between good friends) exactly what the circumstances were that they had met and become lovers.

Long before Stiles froze to death one winter, before ever finding out that werewolves even existed (around the time that the rest of the Pack were dealing with Peter Hale's vengeance trail against the Argents), Danny had worked up the courage to ask out the only other boy he had met that he found attractive and who he was almost sure might be gay. Ted had reacted pretty strongly, and Danny at first thought he must have been mistaken. He apologized and walked away from Ted, only to be grabbed from behind a second later. Danny panicked, thinking that Ted was more freaked out than he thought and was attacking him in a homophobic rage. He whirled and punched Ted in the jaw. One look at Ted's face told him the truth…Ted was about to confess that he was gay too. And Danny had hit him.

Ted was more surprised than anything (Danny had held back the full force of the punch, unwilling to do more damage than he had to), and Danny looked so stricken that Ted actually laughed even while rubbing his jaw painfully.

"Not a good way to start off a relationship, Dan." Ted said softly.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry I thought you were going to try to beat me up or something…Ted, you can totally hit me back if you want. I deserve it."

"No way. Look…I've never told anyone. I was a little freaked out you knew, but it took me a few seconds for me to be _okay_ with you knowing. I always thought you were cute, and it was really sexy to me that you were out and proud…but my family doesn't know and I never _want_ them to know. If I'm out at school, they'll find out about me. I won't ask you to date a closet case, that's not fair to you at all. But I'm flattered you asked, and if things were different, I would definitely say yes."

But Danny put a lot of pressure on Ted, and they _had_ gone on dates…dates that quickly began to escalate in intensity as their feelings grew stronger at a rapid pace. Danny talked about Ted's situation with his mother, and after having Ted over for dinner a few times, she made the offer that if worse came to worse with his family, he would have a place in the Kean home. She warned her son not to push his first boyfriend before he was ready…perhaps knowing her advice was falling on deaf ears. As the fateful night of the Formal approached, Danny hinted that he really wanted to take Ted with him to the last dance of their Senior year. Ted hesitated to give him a definite answer, and Danny began to pull back and give Ted the cold shoulder, even playing up his relationship with Jackson as being more than it was. He didn't want to hurt Ted's feelings, he just wanted the other boy to realize that he couldn't live his life for other people. When you did that, it was your own happiness that got sacrificed. The plan worked only too well. Ted stopped Danny in the field after practice and told him that if Danny hadn't found another date, Ted would be happy to go with him to the Formal. Then he walked off slowly with his head down…it bothered Danny, but he couldn't put his finger on why. It was only after he heard about what happened that he understood.

Ted had gone home that night and come out to his parents. Half an hour later, his parents and two older brothers had deposited the last of his things on the curb in front of their house where trash was typically placed on garbage day. Anything that could be broken, was. Ted was not as upset as he might have been, he'd been preparing for this his whole life. He called Danny, who arrived with Jackson and a large rental van a short time later. Danny had silent tears coming down his face, more upset than Ted was.

"This is my fault. I pushed you into this. I care about you so much, and I've already hurt you twice. I should just do you a favor and get the hell out of your life-"

Danny found himself roughly shoved against the side of the van, his head smacking into the metal.

"Okay, Dan. I wasn't mad about the punch, and I wasn't mad about what you pulled to get me to go to that dance with you, but _now_ I'm pissed. I didn't come out for _you_; I came out for me, because I wanted to. I did it so that I could have a real life with someone I care about. But if after all this, I wind up going to that dance Stag, I swear to you I will find a way to make it with Jackson and I will send you a ton of pictures. Each one will be labeled 'This could have been you.' Got it?"

Danny nodded, a little shocked. Jackson poked his head out from inside the back of the van just as Ted let Danny go.

"Everything okay?" he asked, 'clueless' written all over his face.

"Yeah, just slipped." Danny said.

After the Formal, when both boys were struck with a sense of their own mortality at Lydia's attack, Ted resolved to officially tell his parents he forgave them, and that he was open to them contacting him if they ever changed their minds about him in the future. Phone calls were refused, and letters were returned unopened. Ted felt he had no choice but to go see them in person. Danny waited in the car for moral support, but quickly jumped out when Ted's two older brothers came out and began to beat the crap out of him. Danny was an excellent fighter, and he helped Ted quickly turn the tide of battle against them. They left the two boys bleeding and unconscious, and Danny held Ted all night while he had a nervous breakdown in the Kean home. Ted realized he would never, ever be able to go home again. That's rough, no matter how assholish your family is.

After the boys had been accepted into the Pack (sponsored by a newly turned Jackson, who never stopped begging Derek until he finally agreed just to shut him up) their lives were pretty amazing until the winter of Stiles' death. After that everything went straight to hell. The Pack visited Ted's old home one night, at a loss for something to destroy. His family died as they had lived, cursing Ted for being a monster. Unlike the first time, he now agreed with them.

The Pack served as the ultimate dysfunctional family, a concept none of them were strangers to. They remained together no matter how increasingly depraved their crimes became, and their bond grew along with their dementia. No matter what happened, they vowed never to separate…even acquiring piercings that went through flesh _and _bone (only their werewolf healing factors allowed this to work) and could be interlocked while they slept, clinging to each other like frightened children.

Back in the present, they slipped the hooks of their piercings together, locking them into step as they walked down the hall. They took the stairs up a couple of flights and came upon an enormous master bedroom with a huge four-poster bed. They ignored the closet door across from it and pulled off their clothes as they (with a much practiced maneuver) lay in the middle of the bed where they gave in to their passions. As they both built towards an explosive simultaneous orgasm, tentacles suddenly shot out from beneath the bed entangling Danny and firmly anchoring him to the mattress. More shot out from the canopy and wrapped themselves around Ted, beginning to draw him upwards. Both boys shouted as the tentacles pulled, their flesh straining and tearing as the interlocked hooks ripped their bones apart and opened them up like bags of blood. Mercifully, they entered oblivion before the final separation, and each was secretly pleased that even in the last seconds of their lives they were still together.

{}{}{}{}

Derek was frantic when the phone finally beeped again, and he sighed with relief at the text message.

I'm, bringing a friend. No matter what happens, play along.

There was an energy in the air, shooting through the ball room doors and pouring into the unconscious bodies of Jackson and Lydia. The two woke up, much to the surprise and delight of the rest of the Pack. Only Derek noticed the sly wink Lydia gave him while pointing to the cell phone still in Derek's hand.

"Okay guys, I've learned a lot in 'Coma Land', and we have to get to the top of the house to the closet in the Master Bedroom. That's the way home. The goat-thing is going to throw everything at us along the way, but Stiles is working on a way to kill it. If Stiles dies, we're screwed. If he wins, the house loses its power and we go home. We have to be out of here before the sun rises again in this world…that's when the demolition is due to start, which means we have only hours to go. Are we ready?"

They all cheered.

"The important thing is _not to fear._ That is what it thrives on. Easier said than done, but try anyway." Jackson put in.

"He's right. I want everyone shifted and on full alert. Anybody senses anything, warn the rest of the group. If we get hit, we all attack it until its dead. Any questions?" Derek looked around at them.

"Yeah, why aren't we moving already?" asked Scott.

Derek sighed. The old urge to smack the young boy was coming back.

"Let's go." They left the ball room, in search of their way home.

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The entity raged, unable to understand why its power was weakening. It destroyed the analogs its bastard had gathered with only one exception, and their deaths were swift and terrible; yet in none of the cases had the victims generated fear-energy so that it could replenish its power. They died…_happy_. Whatever passed for their souls evaporated before it could anchor them here, as if they had left them behind in the world they hailed from. The bastard was coming for it, beginning to suspect where it kept its body. The entity had expended the greater portion of its energy, but if it could get to a few of the remaining wolves, it could soon be at full strength again. It was time to use the most devious of all the tricks and traps it had in store…


	7. Chapter 7

The Pack raced swiftly up the flight to the second floor, taking only one knapsack full of their personal belongings and leaving the rest behind. The far end of the hallway where the next flight up lay seemed to recede into an infinite distance. From the shadows that collected at the far end came the sound of hundreds of creatures all hissing and chittering. The walls, floor and ceiling all darkened as something…many somethings approached on hundreds of legs. At first, their minds couldn't make sense of what they were seeing…it was just too unreal. Then Scott began to moan.

"Oh, no…why…why did it have to be _spiders?_" The Beta features receded, leaving Scott looking both terrified and nausteated.

These were no ordinary spiders, however. As large as dogs, each spider sported the head of Kate Argent, her filthy hair hanging down over her face revealing multi-faceted red eyes and fang filled mandibles that clicked menacingly. Mocking laughter came from the horde as Scott slid down the nearest wall trembling.

"Really? An arachnophobic werewolf?" Derek snarled. For the first time since they had been trapped here, Derek gave himself fully over to the Alpha shift. The others had no idea to this day what it was like…Derek had been a Beta his whole life and yet was still overwhelmed by the brute force and power this higher form possessed. The fact that they had overcome his uncle had been nothing but luck, he felt that with his whole being. The only reason that any of them had survived is that Peter's bloodlust was not directed at them…at least, not completely. He had taken Kate with brutal ease the moment she was within reach…a prime example of the Hunter breed with too much training and too little remorse…and Peter snuffed her out like a match. Now Derek would carry on the family tradition, slaughtering these mockeries of Kate with the same ease.

The Alpha strode into the horde, and laid about him with his massive paws, snapping his jaws with great effect. Vile black ichor ran over his tongue as he crunched the face off one spider, which he spit out before taking another. He slammed his clawed feet into groups of three and four at a time, the wet heat of their innards soaking into his fur. He swiped his clawed hands through group after group, mangling and ripping apart dozens of the creatures. The rest of the Betas (with the exception of Scott), pushed past their normal shifts by his fury and need joined him in destroying the monstrous spiders. None of them had any particular fear of spiders; this attack had been meant solely for Scott, and the wolves found that they were constantly having to chase any that got past them, since the creatures would charge directly at the paralyzed teen if given the chance.

Lydia and Jackson, werewolves possessed by once-human spirits, were new to the power of the wolf and had to learn quickly to adapt to this new strength. If they fought with less efficiency and with no indication of having received Derek's training over the years, none of the Pack seemed to notice. Manfred Pheer particularly relished the sensation of being truly alive again, and was tempted for a moment to ponder what it would be like to keep this young and powerful body for himself…but then banished the thought. His time was past, and no life brought pleasure without some measure of pain. He just wanted to rest. But first, there was work to do.

For herself, Stella was intrigued by the werewolf's power, and felt she now understood Derek and his Pack…even her own son…a little better than she had before. She thought back to her old friend Diana Hale, mother of the young man she fought beside, and a wide grin crossed her face. "Di, if you could only see me now!"

The horde was eventually vanquished, only one of the spiders remained alive. It chittered and screeched as it dodged madly around the raging wolves and made a beeline straight for Scott, sensing his terror.

Just before it reached him, his paralysis broke and he lurched to his feet. He screamed, his right arm covering his eyes and stomped on the spider, feeling a mild stinging in his leg which quickly faded to numbness.

Peeking out, he saw that the horrible thing was dead, and his Pack was looking at him with wide eyes.

"Hey…I did it!" Scott grinned weakly before passing out.

Derek snarled, loping over to the fallen Beta. Scott was down for the count.

"Nothing we can do, Derek. Let's just take him and keep going! We have to get to the top!" 'Lydia' told him. Seeing his head Beta dispatched so easily unnerved Derek, and obliterated the glimmer of hope he was enjoying since Stella arrived. He was a fool to think they would get out of here alive. He shifted back (grateful the stretchy sweatpants he wore had survived the transformation) and hoisted Scott's unconscious body over one shoulder. The end of the hall seemed to snap forward at them, and they mounted the stairs that led to the third floor wondering what new horror would await them there.

{}{}{}{}

Stiles stalked angrily down the fourth floor hallway (his left foot leaving burning cloven hoof prints in the floor), cursing his demonic nemesis. The thing was shifting the house, preventing them from ascending to the final floor. Scott followed along silently, not caring to question where they were going, just grateful he was being allowed to follow in his best friends footsteps. As Alpha of the Nega-Pack, he felt it as each of his Betas perished. He was proud that they were able to fulfill their destinies and die for Stiles like they always meant to…after all, they had killed him as surely as Derek had. They deserved it, one and all…and now, through some divine provenance, they would actually do it in the service of their lost brother, whom death had transformed into something approaching a god…or a demon. Scott would do no less when the time came…and he only hoped that if his death were gruesome enough…painful enough…it might balance the scales, and Stiles would forgive him.

Stiles opened a door and looked through into the first floor kitchen. He cursed and slammed it shut. Another seemed to be the exit from the gazebo into the topiary, which was full of hedge-creatures that roamed the gardens looking for prey. Stiles closed it for just a second, and then opened it again quickly to find the foyer inside the main entrance. He shut it.

"I need to get Derek and the others up here. With all of us looking for the right door, one of us is bound to find it."

_"Derek?_" Scott spat. "He's here?" His eyes glowed crimson at the thought of being able to destroy his old Alpha once again.

"Not _your_ Derek. _This_ one saved me…although I'm pretty pissed at him for putting me in danger in the first place. Then again, I brought him and the Pack here, so I guess we're even."

Scott was stunned. "Derek…saved you? But…"

Stiles shook his head. "Remember those Marvel 'What If' comics? It's like that. I died in your world, but survived in mine…and became something more. The flight down to the third floor is still there. Go and bring the Pack up here. I don't want to give any ground, so I'll stay."

Scott nodded and ran down the steps. Stiles looked around the dark hall with his mismatched eyes, exploring the house with his alien senses and struggling to thread the maze in his mind that the goat-man had made of the structure. Rooms and halls were whirling around on the other side of the doors, opening them might lead literally anywhere.

"One more floor, fucker. One more, then I take you apart. For me and every other kid that was ever scared of the Boogeyman growing up."

{}{}{}{}

The Pack found that unlike the second floor hallway which was a straight run, the third floor was more maze-like. The doors opened randomly onto rooms, or even other short stretches of hall. None of the halls they found led to stairs…they would have to go through the rooms. They proceeded cautiously, opening each door they passed, but not stepping fully inside…until Ted opened a door and discovered the bedroom of his old house. Surprised out of his caution, he entered the room only to have the door slam shut behind him. The knob refused to turn, even when Ted shifted and wrenched it right off the door. He heard the voices of the Pack on the other side and shouted at them for help. He strained his ears to listen for them and was shocked at what he heard.

"What a pain in the ass. Now we have to save his worthless hide." came Derek's voice.

"Fuck. Do we have to? I just found the way up to the fourth floor!" Jackson called.

'_What the hell?' _Ted thought to himself. How the hell could they talk like that, didn't they realize he could hear them? They were supposed to be his friends, his Pack mates!

"Really? Let's vote. All for leaving his sorry ass, say 'Aye'" This from Lydia, followed by a chorus of 'Ayes'. It seemed unanimous.

"C'mon, Danny. I wanted to set you up with that friend of mine anyway…much cuter than that troll you were pity-fucking." Allison's normally sweet soothing voice was full of cold cruelty. Ted felt a deep pain in his chest at their words, his eyes beginning to sting.

"Yeah, the house did me a favor by helping me lose the dead wood. I just dated him because I felt guilty about his folks throwing him out, and he has some mad skills in bed, but now I kind of sympathize with them. You know, I even talked with them? He thinks he got thrown out for being gay…he still doesn't get it that they would have hated him if he were straight…they just wanted to have an excuse to evict him. His own Dad told me he wished I were his son instead. His brothers go out for beers with me sometimes. You know, one of them is kind of cute…"

"Who the fuck am I going to get to clean my house?" Derek's voice trailed off as the Pack left. Ted pounded on the door, then froze when he heard a voice behind him. His father's voice.

"So, my miserable excuse for a son decided to come home. I thought we told you never to come back! What's the matter, your boyfriend doesn't want you anymore? Guess that means you don't have anybody…because you certainly don't have us!"

Ted turned around. There stood his father, mother, and brothers. His father was swinging a wrench into his palm, while his brothers each had baseball bats.

"It was _so_ much better when you left, little brother. Dad found a new job, my grades went up, Mom stopped drinking and the brother I actually _do_ like stopped using drugs!" said his brother Timothy.

"I feel like shooting up again just looking at you, you pathetic freak." put in Thomas.

"And I think I need a drink. They told me I couldn't have any more kids after you crawled out of me, but it only took six months for me to be grateful I couldn't…I don't think I could have handled another brat like you! The Turner family was disgraced enough with just the one…" his mother shook her head, pursing her lips as she always did when she found some excuse to ream him out.

Ted backed away from the bedroom door, forgetting his own powers as sickening despair filled his being. He managed to lock himself in the bathroom as the taunts and jeers continued to come through the door, backing up until his legs hit the tub and he collapsed into it, the warm water soaking his clothes instantly. He reached one hand out to pull himself up and touched something hard and metallic. He looked over and took up the old-fashioned silver straight razor. He unfolded the blade and watched it flash in the harsh fluorescent light. He began to shake uncontrollably…abandonment had always been his worst fear, and he might have ended his own life long ago but for the terror that in death he would be even more alone. The razor belonged to his grandfather, the only member of his family that ever seemed to care about him. Ted had taken it just to have something of the old man's, and in his early teens contemplated slashing his wrists. But he was afraid of dying as much as he was afraid of living. Ted's heart began to race as the panic attack built in force, his breath rapidly whipsawing in and out. What could he do? What the hell _should_ he do?

The light dimmed, and the bathroom door burst open. Ted looked at the goat-man, terrified. As the figure slowly approached, Ted brought the razor to his throat intending to end his worthless life, hoping at the very least he could escape the horror that was coming for him.

{}{}{}{}

"_TEDDY!" _screamed Danny, pounding at the door to the room where Ted was trapped. Danny shifted immediately and began tearing at the door in a rage the Pack had never seen from him before. He slammed his fist through the wood and literally pulled the door to pieces while they watched. And there, on the other side…was Scott? But not the Scott they all knew. This one was dressed in ragged clothing with longish hair and a full beard. The rest of the Pack looked at him.

"What the hell?" Derek muttered aloud. The new Scott looked over at him and gave a challenging growl, his eyes flashing crimson. Derek's own Alpha instincts kicked in, and he nearly lunged at the intruder before catching himself. This had to be a trick of the house.

"Who are you? You look like Scott, but you're definitely not him!"

"Stiles sent me. And the only reason I'm not ripping your head off is because he says you saved his life. He's upstairs, and I'm to bring you to him."

"I'm not leaving without Ted." Danny snarled.

'Scott' shook his head. "You may as well come. If he's in a room somewhere, he's either dead already or about to be."

"Derek?" Danny asked. Here it was…another decision laid at his feet that might mean the life or death of a Pack member. Stella looked at him pityingly though Lydia's eyes. She was beginning to see what he struggled with.

"Come on, Derek? Who are you going to choose? _Your_ mate? Or Danny's? Either way means a betrayal…either way means a Pack member may die." 'Scott' was smirking at him.

He opened his mouth to speak; he honestly had no idea what was going to come out when he was interrupted by a loud crashing noise.

{}{}{}{}

The goat-thing took another step closer, and Ted pressed the blade into the side of his neck. The thing opened its cavernous mouth, revealing its rows of teeth.

'_The important thing is not to fear. Fear is what it thrives on.'_ Jackson's voice echoed through his mind. Just as the goat-thing reached down a claw-fingered hand towards Ted's face, the young Beta slashed out with the razor. The thing screeched and broke apart into fleeing shadows, and Ted looked at the thick black liquid that dripped from the blade.

"Go fuck yourself." he said aloud. He stood, washing and pocketing the razor. He walked back through the door to his bedroom. His family stood there, looking at him expectantly.

"I knew you wouldn't have the guts to do it, you were always-" his father began, before suddenly being knocked to the ground by a vicious right hook.

"Save it for someone who'll believe your bullshit." Ted told the group of them.

He turned his back on them, and giving himself over fully to the wolf that lived within him, he pulverized the door with one massive slam of his fist. He stepped out into the hall to find that the Pack had not left, they were still waiting for him. The door he came through was across from the one he entered (which was also smashed). Someone that looked like the child of Scott and a Hell's Angel was having a Glaring contest with Derek. He was suddenly tackled by Danny in a fierce hug, and Ted knew, as he had always known on some level, that Danny and the Pack would never leave him behind in any but the most dire circumstances…but if they ever did, he now knew he would survive. In a strange way, the house had done him a favor. When he turned back to look into the room where his family lurked, he saw that it was empty and bare.

The new Scott scowled, while a look of pure relief washed over Derek's face.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" he asked, looking around at the group with new eyes.

"Derek was just going to tell us whether or not we should leave you behind to find Stiles and escape. Any thoughts on that?" 'Scott' threw an ugly smirk at Derek, who growled menacingly. Scott's own eyes flashed crimson.

Danny interrupted what would likely have turned into an all-out attack between the two.

"First thing, I don't know you, dude, but you sound like a douche. Second, I know if Derek left me… or any of us… it would be because he had to, for the good of the Pack. I also know it would haunt him forever. He's an Alpha, and that's his cross to bear. Looks like you're an Alpha too. Where's _your_ Pack?"

The new Scott growled and lunged across the room at Ted. Derek (still with the body of the original Scott on his shoulder) grabbed him in passing and hurled him into the nearest wall. He was up again in a moment, beginning his shift into the Alpha form. But for Ted, the rest of the Pack grabbed his flailing limbs, restraining him. While he growled and snapped at them, Ted approached and grabbed the thick hair, pulling the silver straight razor from his pocket and holding it to the other boy's neck.

"Keep it up, and I _end _you. Got it?"

The rogue Alpha ceased struggling and shifted back, Glaring at them. "My Pack died in service to _his_ mate…after your fearless leader _killed_ him. In my world, Stiles _died_ in that snow…died because of you, Derek! Because you were a cold selfish prick, just like you are now. He was my best friend and I found him frozen _solid_…he _broke_ in two when they tried to move him, and it was all your _fault!_"

Derek's claws were buried in 'Scott's' neck so quickly, he had no memory of how he got there. He squeezed, feeling the vertebrae in the neck creak. A little more pressure, and…

Lydia's hand touched him lightly on the shoulder. Derek looked down and saw a hopeful, almost boyish smile on the face of this damaged double…a Scott that lived through the unthinkable outcome of one of Derek's most horrible mistakes. The boy _wanted_ Derek to kill him with every fiber of his being, just to get away from the guilt that ate him from within.

Derek released him, dropping him to the floor.

"Your fault…my fault…all our fault…" 'Scott' whispered, tears flowing down his face.

The Pack looked down at him, speechless. Derek closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with a trembling hand. The pressure of the last few days was beginning to take its toll on him. He didn't know how much more he could stand.

He gently pulled the young Alpha to his feet. "You're right. It _was_ my fault…but it _wasn't_ yours. You were not to blame for his death. None of you were. I remember that night like it was yesterday…I threw everyone out, but you lingered…even when I did my best to intimidate you into leaving. You were very brave, and tried to be there for him…like a best friend should."

"I sh-should h-h-have done m-more…" Scott was shaking, and he started to scream, the years of his torture trying to escape from his throat all at once. The atrocities he had committed with his Pack over the years rushed through his mind, and behind it all the drive to _earn_ the damnation he felt he so richly deserved… for failing to save his best friend. He screamed even louder when the rest of the Pack moved in close, hoping against hope that they would rip him to pieces…but instead, one and all they embraced him. His screams slowly quieted as an old and forgotten feeling chased the anguish from his soul (though it burned him as it left)…the feeling of being loved.

When they helped him up, it tore at Derek's soul to see that even though his rage had left, the boy was and always would be broken. If only he could have gotten to him earlier…but that seemed to be the story of Derek's life. He was cursed to forever be just a bit too late.

Speaking of which…

"Let's go. The door this version of Scott came through…I can see stairs that go up to the next floor."

Derek picked up the unconscious Scott, while Ted and Danny put the merely catatonic one's arms around their shoulders and made their way up the stairs. There they would find Stiles, and hopefully the way out.

{}{}{}{}

Outside the abandoned ruin of Pheer House on Earth, the demolition crew pulled up to the gates. The foreman looked with concern at the row of parked cars, and sent in a team of his men to search the place from top to bottom (with a warning to stay together, they were all familiar with the local legends about the place) before they got started. Only one kid in town owned a silver Porsche, and the foreman had no desire to be responsible for the death of his boss' son. The men came back after a while and reported that although it looked as if there had been some activity there recently, the place was definitely empty.

"You think we should call old man Whittemore?" said the bulldozer driver.

"He's on a trip. He hates it when we bother him with every little thing…but this _is_ his boy…" The foreman cursed to himself. This is what it meant to be in charge…always having to make these damned decisions.

"Take one more trip through, bring the megaphones and shout your heads off. If there's no answer, we knock the fucker down." he told his man.

"You're the boss." the other shrugged.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Hey all, sorry for the long absence. I left you guys high and dry. I can only say that things happen in life that are beyond our control, and the last few months have not been fun for me. I wanted to finish this because when I sat down and opened my email, there were about two dozen letters demanding I finish under pain of death. I actually had to read the whole thing over again to get back into this frame of mind…and its almost twenty pages long. The end is a bit clipped because I'm exhausted but I hope you enjoy anyway. Reviews are always appreciated, but keep in mind I just wanted to get this up (and put goat-dude to rest before I go to sleep tonight) and have not done my own editing yet. I want to finish my other two stories, and was hoping to do so before the Season 2 premiere (who's gonna be reading fanfiction when the actual show is on?) but not sure that will happen._

As they mounted the steps, they felt the house sway beneath their feet as if they were on the hundredth floor instead of merely the fourth. All of them were sure that if they looked out the window, they would see the ground plummeting away from them as Pheer House grew into the sky like some antebellum Tower of Babel. Their legs wobbled, and they grabbed at walls and bannisters to steady themselves. When they saw the thing approaching them, they screamed fearing it was some phantasm of the house, or perhaps the Goat-man himself, come to face them at last. When he drew closer, they recognized him and Derek felt a bolt of pure icy despair stab right into his heart.

"Stiles…" he whispered.

"Stiles isn't here anymore." the thing responded.

{}{}{}{}

The foreman shook his crackling cell phone. He couldn't be sure of what he had just heard through the static.

"Mr. Whittemore…are you sure about this?" If the foreman were hearing this from anyone else, he wouldn't have believed it.

"Yes, I'm sure. When I give the signal, start the demolition. My son is here with me, and he tells me that his friends are not on the property. As soon as you receive the text, I want you to send the wrecking ball right through the top of the house. Am I understood?"

"Yes Sir. I'll get everyone in position." The connection went dead. Bizarrely, the phone was now registering the "no service" warning. He rubbed his face with his hands, getting the strangest feeling that there was something very wrong going on here.

{}{}{}{}

Stiles, or the thing he had become, grinned sickeningly at Derek as he approached.

The blackened eye (which had begun to sport a red catlike iris) glared at him malevolently, while the amber wolf's eye bore an almost human expression of longing. Before Derek got within three feet of Stiles, a hook-clawed finger waggled a warning at him.

"Not a good idea. I'm not completely myself. I might…do…anything. I know that if I were in my right mind, I would never want to hurt you. I _know_ that…but I no longer _feel_ it, if you get my drift."

"Stiles, I can help you. I can…" Derek fell quiet as Stiles growled…an utterly inhuman (and un-wolflike) growl.

"Helping me would be a very bad idea. I NEED THIS…to get the monster that trapped us here. Otherwise, _none_ of us is going home. You need to take all of that over-protective Alpha crap and throw it out a window if you expect us to survive. You can't save me if you want to save your Pack. This is it, Derek. The choice you never wanted to make…your worst fear, if you will. I need you to promise me you will let me do what I need to do…even if it kills me. Do I have your word? You'll need to make the Oath I read about in Eowin Radcliffe's book…the Oath no werewolf can break."

Derek never looked or felt so helpless and trapped in all of his life. Being chained to Kate Argent's torture machine was like running naked though a sunny meadow in comparison. The Pack looked at him expectantly (none more intensely than Nega-Scott), but Derek looked right at Lydia. He couldn't make this decision by himself. Stella, occupying Lydia's body, knew what Derek was asking her with that look. In answer, she nodded her head slowly. He looked surprised, and she couldn't blame him…but she was not agreeing for the reason he thought she was.

"I swear then. Until we escape from this house, I promise I won't try to stop you or save you…I swear on the Father of all Wolves." He whispered. The Pack sighed, knowing what it cost him to give that oath.

Stiles looked at him sadly. "Until we escape from this house." he agreed. "But before I fight it, we have to get to the next floor. Spread out; try every door you can until you find the stairway up. Whatever you do, don't go through a door that leads to rooms on the lower floors. By shifting the house around, it can keep us here indefinitely…it wants to kill me before I can get to it."

Danny spoke up. "Stiles…what do you think your chances are? Can you beat it?"

Stiles considered. "I've only ever faced its spirit forms…never in the flesh. It will be a thousand times tougher…the wolf may just give me the edge I need."

Nega-Scott came fully awake at that moment.

"Stiles…I want to help you. I'll gladly give my life…"

Stiles shook his head. "You may be an Alpha, but that's no use here. The wolf only gives me strength because it enhances whatever supernatural powers the goat-thing passed down to me…those powers are the only way to fight it. I won't know if the wolf strengthened them _enough_ until I fight the damned thing. All you have are teeth and claws, and they will only do so much. Crude weapons they are, when you think about it. There is nothing else you can do, Scott."

Scott looked like he had just been kicked in the stomach.

"But Stiles…you don't understand, I have to…I have to die for you-"

_**"YOUR DEATH IS USELESS TO ME!"**_Stiles roared in a sudden fury. The house seemed to tremble under the force of his rage. Cracks tore open in the walls and floor, and ran straight up to the ceiling. The structure groaned as two opposing powers sought to warp the laws of space-time within it. Stiles, or the creature he had become, suddenly looked up to the cracked ceiling and grinned. It was a hideous sight.

"GOT YOU!" he shouted. Stiles leapt upward, his hooked claws anchoring him to the ceiling. Slamming his wolf fist repeatedly into the crack, he forced open a large hole…that quickly began to seal itself back up again, faster than he could make keep it open. He threw down a malevolent glance at the Pack.

"Um, a little help here, guys?" he said in an almost normal tone of voice.

The Pack looked at each other. Jackson knelt and Lydia got on his shoulders, letting her reach the ceiling and begin to help Stiles rip it open. Allison took over caring for Scott while Ted climbed on of Danny and began doing the same. With the three working together, they made a bit more headway…but the house merely increased the speed of its recovery.

The six werewolves growled in frustration while they continued their efforts. There was a pile of plaster, drywall and nail-studded wood framing on the floor that was getting higher by the minute. Derek felt a tap on his shoulder and saw Nega-Scott (looking almost completely sane) giving him a wink. He pointed at Derek and then himself. Understanding suddenly dawned and Derek gave the doppelganger of his head Beta a slight grin.

"Shall we show them how it's done?" Nega-Scott asked.

"You're willing to team up with me?" Despite the fact that their time was running out, Derek had to know.

"You…you aren't the one who killed him. I'd kill your double again in a second…but I saw what it cost you to make that oath just now. I don't think even Stiles realizes. Besides, for all his power, he's still a Beta. I want to show him what 'crude weapons' can really do." Looking up, he shouted "Get that hole open as wide as you can!"

The two Alphas began to shift, the glowing red eyes preceding the wrenching transformation into lupine powerhouses of strength and fury. The clothing shredded off their bodies as the twisting change ran through them. When it was complete, they stood side by side for a moment, panting heavily. Derek then laced his clawed hands together, kneeling on the floor. Scott ran up and used the 'step' Derek made (with all of Derek's strength behind it) to leap upwards and smash through the ceiling like a werewolf cannonball. The ceiling vaporized into a five-foot wide hole that Derek immediately leapt upward through, followed by Stiles. Once safely on the higher floor, the three worked to keep the hole open while the rest of the Pack came through. Lydia clambered up and reached down to yank Jackson after her. Once on top, they joined the Alphas at keeping the hole opened and were able to halt the sealing of the ceiling completely. Ted climbed through next and gestured for Allison and Danny to pass up the unconscious Scott, following right after. When they were all safely on the fifth floor, they ceased their efforts and watched the hole close itself.

"Awesome!" Stiles breathed excitedly, in his human voice.

{}{}{}{}

"Get ready! Very soon now!" called the foreman as he gave the signal to the wrecking ball operator, who activated the machine to send the ball swinging in ever-widening arcs. At the right moment, a small adjustment to the main lever would alter the trajectory of the swing and destroy Pheer House. Personally, the operator couldn't wait. He always hated the place.

{}{}{}{}

The hall led to a stairway at one end, the bottom of which was now blocked with debris from the destroyed fourth floor ceiling, while the other end contained only a single door. They walked slowly towards the door, Stiles in the lead. Scott and Derek had changed back, salvaging as much of their modesty as possible by wrapping the remains of their clothes around their waists. Having been werewolves for so long, the Pack were well used to this problem and none paid any mind…though perhaps Danny and Ted glanced at them for a second or two longer than the others.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer." Derek growled at them, without turning around.

Opening the door, the Pack gasped collectively. Any pleasant mood elevation Danny and Ted might have enjoyed in the last few seconds vanished as they took in the shattered remains of Nega-Danny and Nega-Ted lying in and around the four poster bed. They promptly turned away, their stomachs heaving as the world seemed to spin around them.

"Oh my God…that's…that's us…oh sweet Christ, that's us!" moaned Danny. Ted was speechless, and the rest of the Pack could not bear to look for more than a moment. Only Stiles seemed unmoved, though his eyes seemed to burn more intensely than ever. He focused his gaze on the door to the closet. It was like nothing they had ever seen before. It was glistening with a coating of dark red paint…or what they hoped was paint. Hideous images, faces of monsters and goblins of every sort littered its surface…not one of them failed to recognize a particular creature that had once chased them through the shadowed halls of their dreams. Morlocks, zombies, vampires, mummies, evil doll-heads and fish heads with razor sharp teeth were just a few of the ones they recognized of the nearly infinite faces of fear. The door knob was the worst…a carved goat-head grinned at them, snapping its rows of teeth at them, daring them to stretch out their hands to it.

The Pack stayed well away from the door; only Stiles approached, though he was followed a moment later by Nega-Scott.

"Let me open it for you." said Scott's double.

Stiles, almost let him, despite himself. The door was that freaking impressive. "No buddy…I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who _can_ open it."

"It will kill us, won't it?" Nega-Scott sighed almost in relief.

"Oh, try not to get a woody over it you sicko."

Stiles reached out with his right hand. The knob started snapping at him as did the nearby faces which seemed to stretch out of the wood to reach him. The goat-head knob snatched its jaws on the tender flesh between his thumb and index fingers, biting deep and holding fast. Stiles screamed and shrieked as his hand was chewed heartily. The goat-head began to get larger, its neck stretching out of the door. The screaming got louder, sounding both more human and more childlike by the moment. The pain was causing him to fear…and fear was causing him to weaken.

"ENOUGH!" Lydia screamed. She walked over and, without regard to any of the other monsters writhing in the essence of the door, she lifted her foot and slammed it right in the center, screeching "LET MY SON _**GO!**_"

There was a bright flash at the impact, and they were both thrown backwards. Nega-Scott helped Stiles to his feet…crying out of his wolfish eye.

The others let him compose himself in silence. The door seemed to melt, the faces fading away until it resembled a plain white wooden door…with a long crack running down the center.

Stiles looked up at Lydia, the tears continuing. "You aren't Lydia…and he's not Jackson."

"No. Let me give you a piece of advice: use your _other_ hand on that door next time, Genim."

Stiles stepped towards her, and they embraced awkwardly, wracking sobs shaking his frame.

Nega-Scott was open-mouthed in wonder, and the rest of the Pack looked at each other in mixed fear and amazement. Only Derek looked grim, knowing what this must have cost her.

Stiles pulled back from Lydia, and chuckled. "My mother… in the body of a girl I lusted after for years. My shrink is gonna have a field day."

They laughed, and Stiles managed to compose himself. The pain in his hand faded to a low throb.

"Mom-" he began.

"Stiles, honey…there is absolutely no time."

He walked over to the door. "I know…just…thank you for saving my ass again. Just like with the pit bull. I love you…you were the best Mom in the world."

Stiles turned the knob with his left hand, and the door opened easily. A dark reddish tunnel stretched away before him. The walls seemed to glisten wetly for the few feet they were able to see, and the floor was a reddish/purple color. There was something familiar seeming about it, but none could pinpoint what it was. A reeking stench came from the doorway on a hot wind that made them all want to retch. Stiles stepped inside the doorway, looking around uncertainly. This was not what he had expected…he thought the goat-headed monster would be there, big as life and twice as ugly. It was Nega-Scott, perhaps because of all who were present, he had the most experience with insanity, and so was the first to recognize the danger.

"Stiles! GET BACK!" he screamed, hurling himself forward. It was too late, the ivory spears that were even now emerging from the top and bottom of the door frame were meshing together with Stiles trapped on the other side. Nega-Scott leapt through the rapidly closing jaws only to be caught partway; his legs were severed by the teeth just above the knees, his strangled scream echoing inside the cavernous maw of Kadeth. The door swung shut; in the next second, the Pack shifted as one and began beating their fists bloody against it. Only Stella and Manfred, in their borrowed bodies, held back. The final battle was joined, and none that were on this side of the door could do anything to help.

The floor began to move under them, the tongue curling around Stiles and attempting to push him towards the rear of the chamber…from which he knew there would be no return.

Nega-Scott reached out his hand desperately, to no avail. Stiles was pulled down into the mother of all long dark tunnels to meet the father of all monsters.

{}{}{}{}

He landed with a thump on the floor of the porch of Derek's home. Once it was going to be his home too, but like an idiot he selfishly tried to force Derek to confront the painful reminders of his lost family just so Stiles could relive a stupid childhood memory. Sitting there, he couldn't believe he had been so insensitive, so uncaring…and so goddamned stupid. He was lucky Derek hadn't ripped his throat out. Hearing Derek let loose one anguished and miserable shout after another from within the home ripped Stiles' heart in two. He did that. This was his fault.

Stiles looked up as Scott approached from the porch steps. It seemed bizarre that he had forgotten Scott was here too.

"What did I do, Scott? He loved me, and look what I did to him! What kind of horrible person does that to someone who loves them?" Stiles' eyes heated up as hot tears spilled down his cheek. Oddly, it seemed he was crying out of only one eye. The right one.

Scott looked down at him, his expression colder than the storm whirling around them.

"I don't know man. I thought it was a pretty fucked up thing, but I figured you knew him best. Guess this means you're out of the Pack now. We're friends man,-"

"You mean that?" Stiles asked. Scott had been his lifelong friend. How could Stiles even think-

"Let me finish, you ADD dumbass. As I was saying, we're friends, but the Pack comes first. I'm Derek's head Beta. That's even more responsibility than being co-captain of the lacrosse team! You drive everyone in the Pack _nuts_, so I'm going to do what Derek obviously wants me to do, and tell you to get the fuck out of all our lives."

Stiles stared at him in disbelief. Scott walked around him and knocked on the door, and was quickly admitted by Derek. Stiles listened to the voices through the door as his heart slowly turned to lead.

"I'm sorry Derek, I never should have let that little dweeb pull this stunt. I would have torn him apart if I knew what would happen."

"Oh…it doesn't matter." Derek said in a voice that went from remarkably calm to low and husky. "The important thing is that he's gone, out of my life forever. And now…I have time for more important things. Like teaching my 'head' Beta exactly how he can keep that job. Speaking of jobs…"

"Way ahead of you, Alpha."

Stiles got up and walked woodenly down the porch steps, hurrying before the moaning that was even now coming through the door could drive him insane.

The storm blew all around him, though the only coldness he felt came from within. He sobbed quietly, feeling as if his soul had been replaced with a shard of jagged glass. He followed the path away from the house, winding his way through the trees though he had no idea where he wanted to go. He saw a flash of red against the flurry of white, and his heart gave a little jump when he realized it was Lydia. She was giggling like a school girl, the sort of laugh he always wished he could hear from her, if she didn't insist on being so guarded and obnoxious all the time. He felt a stab of guilt for thinking that about her. She had her reasons; he had tried so hard to tell her once that she would never need to be that way around him. He loved the _real _her that she worked so hard to keep hidden from everyone else.

As he approached, he saw that she was building a snowman with two teenage boys that he almost seemed to recognize. Something about the scene gave him the creeps.

"Lydia!" he called out. She ignored him. He walked the last few steps up to her. "Lydia…Derek, um…Derek doesn't…uh man this hurts so much to say it. Lyd, he doesn't love me anymore…I think…I think he's with Scott now…"

Lydia turned to him.

"Well it's about time! Stiles, all of us could see that Scott and Derek were _meant_ to be together! Seriously, the idea of _you_ and Derek as a couple was so ridiculous, I had to pinch myself just to keep from laughing until I threw up. Sometimes I just wanted to get right to the throwing up part! There is not ONE SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD who thinks 'Stiles & Derek…yeah, I'd watch a porno with _those_ two!'"

Stiles didn't think he could possibly feel worse than he already did. He discovered how wrong he was when the shard of glass sprouted another couple dozen lethal edges that dug into the very tenderest parts of him. He fell to his knees in the snow, barely able to move. He barely registered boys who now approached and began piling the snow up all around him. Before he realized it, he was buried up to his neck just as the terror set in.

"No! What are you guys doing? Stop it, don't bury me here, no one will find me out here-" he screamed.

"Stiles, sweetie, no one is _looking_!" Lydia said, her voice changing into that of another woman, long forgotten, who had once scared him half to death.

The boys dropped a mountain of snow over him, and he was trapped in the darkness.

Stiles crawled forward, finding himself in a cramped tunnel seemingly underground. The roof of the tunnel felt like solid rock instead of just a few feet of snow. Stiles progressed on his hands and knees before finally being forced to wriggle forward as he felt the immense weight of the earth around him closing in. If the tunnel got any smaller, he might be trapped here. He experimentally tried to maneuver backward only to find it impossible, as if the tunnel were shrinking behind him as well as in front. Now, having stopped, he couldn't seem to get started again, and the tears of despair were joined by those of icy terror. Stiles screamed and cried, he pounded his fist into the ground (and felt a splitting pain on the left side of his forehead as he did so). Something tugged at his memory then, but before he could grasp it, he heard a low chuckle.

Gradually, he began to make out a face in front of him. Someone was trapped in the tunnel a few feet ahead of him. The walls of the tunnel seemed to glow dimly from within, and as the shadows melted away, Stiles realized it was Jackson. And Jackson was grinning.

"Jackson? What are you doing here? Is there any way out of here?" Stiles gasped, the pressure around him keeping him from drawing a full breath. Jackson continued to grin.

"He gave it to me, Stiles. He gave me what I always wanted. Power."

Stiles stared at him, panic beginning to surge inside him.

"I-I know Derek bit you, Jackson. I know you wanted to be a werewolf." Stiles began once more to try to move backward once more, to no avail.

"Not _Derek_, you walking abortion! Kadeth! I wanna show you…" Jackson's voice began to get low and throaty, and an inhuman chuckle bubbled out of his throat. "…I wanna show you what I can do now!"

Jackson's face began to twist in on itself. Stiles started screaming as Jackson's eyes opened to reveal tiny mouths ringed with sharp little teeth. His mouth opened vertically, like an insect, and he began to give off a high pitched chittering screech. Humping along like a grotesque worm, Jackson began surging down the tunnel towards Stiles.

Then the light went out.

{}{}{}{}

In the bedroom of Pheer house, the Pack stood there mesmerized by the sight of Nega-Scott's severed legs adding a fresh pool of blood to the already soaked carpet. There was no end to the stuff, it was even dripping down the walls.

Inhuman laughter rocked the house, which began to shake harder than before.

"Stella, what's happening?" Derek asked.

"Kadeth. He's winning." Stella responded. Her eyes were wide, and her fists were clenched at her sides.

"_Can you get that door open?_" Derek shouted in a panic. His eyes turned a bright crimson.

"No. I'm…I'm just not strong enough." A thought came to her. She suddenly whirled to address Manfred Pheer, still inhabiting Jackson's body.

"Manfred. I think it's time to break a few rules."

"Name it." he said simply.

"First, you're going to need to leave this body. Second…you're going on a little trip."

And Manfred listened to the plan, wishing not for the first time since he met this extraordinary woman that he could have known her a little better…in another life.

{}{}{}{}

As Stiles waited helplessly to be devoured by Jackson, he suddenly noticed that he could move again. He seemed to be in a dark house, feeling his way along, sure that at any moment he was going to crash into a wall or topple over furniture. The Jackson-thing seemed to have vanished…or was lying in wait for him somewhere. Just when he thought he might make it to the front door, his fear came true and he toppled into something…bristly. Feeling more of it, he gave a shallow laugh. He had crashed into a Christmas tree.

The laugh turned into a scream. The Jackson-thing was on the ceiling. With a screech, it dropped towards a terrified Stiles. A jet of flame caught it in mid-air, and Jackson burned up like paper, leaving behind a stench that made Stiles' gorge rise. The walls and curtains as well as most of the furniture were now blazing merrily. Looking towards the source of the fire, Stiles discovered Danny in a fireman outfit (with no shirt) sporting a flamethrower attached to his back.

"It's true what they say…it's a pleasure to burn!" he gave an unpleasant laugh.

"Danny? You…you saved me from Jackson!" Stiles gasped out.

"Jackson can take his 'pity-friendship' and stuff it up his muscular backside. What a closet case…well, guess he's the flaming one now."

"Danny, get this tree off me before the whole house burns up!" Stiles called.

"No can do, Biles. Derek wants you to know exactly what his family went through before you try shoving a holiday down his throat again. Speaking of which, you wouldn't believe what I just saw Scott doing!" Danny chuckled. "Another closet case!"

"Danny! I mean it! Get this thing off!" Stiles saw the flames creeping closer, and struggled under the enormous weight of the tree.

"Oh, shut _up_! You should be happy, Stiles! Remember that question you asked me so long ago? Well, now you get the answer! For the first time ever, I think you're hot!"

Danny pointed the nozzle of the flamethrower at Stiles. In another instant, the Christmas tree was bathed in flame.

Stiles barely managed to get it off him and roll himself to the side. The room was an inferno. He crawled through into what seemed to be the living room, and beheld his father sitting in his favorite easy chair, passionately kissing Allison Argent. Stiles could only stare at them uncomprehendingly.

Allison noticed Stiles. "Don't feel bad, you should be thanking me. If I wasn't giving him my ass, believe me he'd be going for yours-"

Allison's head fell off her shoulders as an axe whickered through the air.

"Slut." muttered a blood-soaked Ted, before swinging it back around to decapitate Sheriff Stilinsky as well. Stiles watched the head of his father roll towards him, the tongue still lolling from the mouth as if trying to continue the make-out session with Allison.

"Fucking family, huh?" Ted said conversationally, leaning on the axe handle.

Stiles was on his feet, racing into the next room where, to his relief, there was a crowd of people.

"Help me! For God's sake, will somebody help me?" he shouted. No one paid any attention to him. They all seemed focused on something sitting in the front of the room. Stiles looked and saw something that made the breath stop in his throat.

It was a coffin. The tide of memory swept away all thought of Derek and the Pack.

Stiles approached in a daze, until he was looking down at her. He thought she would wake, perhaps tell him she had always hated him, perhaps tell him she was happy she died so she never had to be around him anymore. But she didn't. She lay there cold and still, like a mannequin that had never known true life. She had left him alone. They had _all_ left him alone. He had no one, not a single person left. A sudden urge came to him to climb into the coffin with her. He knew that if he did so, he would die. The lid would close, never to open again. His mother would _not_ suddenly spring to ravenous life as a flesh-hungry zombie. That would almost be a good thing; his death would be quick, and for a single moment he would be able to fool himself into thinking she was alive again. But he knew that wouldn't happen. There was something incredibly…_final_…about the way she lay there. Though he would be trapped with her body…he would be truly alone for whatever time he had left. It was a far more pleasant way to go than the monsters had been planning for him. He looked at the entrance hall. They were all there…the Pack and his father…even the two jerks who buried him in snow. Derek, with his arm around Scott looked at him with an almost forgotten impatience. He had to decide soon which way he wanted to die. With his mother, in peace...or at _their_ mercy.

It took only a moment for Stiles to make his choice.

{}{}{}{}

Stella lay Lydia's body down next to Scott and Jackson. She left it behind, just as Manfred Pheer returned from his errand. The Pack, Derek included, had fallen to the floor in an exhausted daze as they awaited the outcome of the battle.

"I brought her." said the ghostly gentleman with a slight Southern accent.

Stella turned to look…at Stella. "Hello." she told herself.

"You aren't me…you're _almost_ me, though. What's going on here?"

"My son…_my_ Stiles…is on the other side of that door. With your help, I can open it." she told her.

"But that would be against the rules! I never break the rules! Not even…not even when…"

"I know. In your world, Stiles died. In mine, he lived…because I did what was necessary.

The new Stella's lip trembled. "You mean, here…I saved him? He's alive somewhere?"

"Yes. But we have to act now! Give me your hand!"

As the two women joined together, the dark force that haunted Pheer house was distracted for a moment as it sensed the rise of this new power. The two women, now sheathed in throbbing energy, approached the closed portal.

"I never…I never realized I was this powerful!" muttered the new Stella.

"That was sort of your whole problem. Now, make a fist…yes, like this, and on three…well, you know what to do. Ready? One…two…"

The doorway into the space between worlds shattered like a china plate in a shooting gallery

The women broke apart, both panting with effort, but thrilled at their accomplishment.

"Well, that was fun. But I really must be going! I'm going to get into such trouble…Oh! Tell Stiles to make sure he wears his jacket when he goes out! And tell him…" she began.

"I will."

Stella watched as her meek counterpart walked over to Manfred and batted her eyes at him. "Could I rely on your kindness just one more time to see me home?" she asked.

"I'll take her back." Manfred told Stella, winking. They faded away, and Stella knew that they would not be returning. This was the endgame, and one way or another this house was going to be destroyed. It was just as well her double left. Stella had never felt the urge to hit anyone more strongly in her entire life. No wonder things went wrong so badly in that world.

The Pack roused themselves, and they carried their fallen members through the doorway into the short hall that was no longer a gaping mouth but just an ordinary passageway with a door at the far end. The door that led home. There would be no forcing this one open, since that would allow Kadeth to escape. They just simply needed to be near it should Stiles emerge victorious and they all returned home…or to warn the rest of the world if the unthinkable happened. Derek knelt down next to Nega-Scott, whose Alpha healing factor was keeping him alive despite the catastrophic damage done to his body. He was shivering with pain, mumbling words Derek couldn't make out. Ted and Danny carried Jackson and Lydia, while Allison carried Scott (needing the full Beta shift to support his weight).

"There's no place like home." muttered Nega-Scott, his pain fogged mind wondering why his efforts to click his heels together were failing so miserably.

{}{}{}{}

Stiles stared at the coffin as he had once done many years ago. He remembered when his father told him that Mommy was in a box because she was going to God. So, because God wanted her, he took her away without asking any of the Stilinsky family if they would mind. God had left Stiles one step closer to being the thing he was most afraid of being…completely and utterly alone.

Stiles remembered how he felt when that realization hit him. He felt fucking _furious._

Stiles gripped the edge of the coffin, hardly aware of the claws sprouting from his fingers.

He thought of the bullies who had picked on him for most of his life. The eyes he turned on his tormentors darkened to dead black, before suddenly flaring amber and crimson.

"So, son? What's the choice going to be? How are you going to die?" asked his father, pulling the cord on an enormous chainsaw.

A pain across his left temple sent Stiles to his knees. The horn that now arched proudly from his temple dripped blood steadily on the clean white carpet of the funeral parlor.

"How am I going to die? I'll tell you. I'm going to die _last."_ He bared his new triple rows of teeth at the people he once loved, and stalked forward to slaughter them all.

He reached Lydia first, thrusting his hand into her chest and pulling out her beating heart. He dropped it to the floor and stomped it flat.

"Just returning the favor!" he told her. Jackson came for him next, fully wolfed out. But for all that Jackson was a star on the lacrosse field, he didn't know Jack-shit about how to kill. Stiles wrenched his head around full circle, disemboweling both Ted and Danny before Jackson hit the floor. Grabbing Ted's axe, he split his father's face almost in half with the sharp blade. The chainsaw was salvaged from the still trembling hands and used to decapitate Allison Argent for the second time in as many hours. He was knocked to the floor by the remaining four. The bullies (whose names he honestly could not remember) pinned his arms, while Scott straddled his legs. A smirking Derek walked over, the Alpha shift beginning to take over his features.

"One thing I'll give you, cub…" he growled, struggling to speak before the shift made it impossible: "…you'll taste sooo much better than Scott!"

"Derek, Derek, Derek…" Stiles broke the holds the bullies had on him and pulled their throats out in simultaneous wet sprays. He kicked Scott off of him, and caught the Alpha by the throat in mid-leap. "I've always wondered what it would be like to do the things that you do!" He smashed the Alpha's head into the nearest wall, splattering it everywhere. The furry body fell to the floor, lifeless. "Now I know!"

Only Scott remained standing. The crowd assembled for the viewing still had not turned around.

Stiles looked at his best friend. Scott roared and came charging at him.

"As your bro…let me give you a final piece of advice!" Stiles caught Scott in headlock, and stuck both hands into his mouth. With a wrench, he pulled Scott's head apart.

"Learn to keep your mouth shut…especially when it comes to my boyfriend."

Stiles remembered everything now, and knew that these puppets were not his true quarry. Kadeth would never be taken down so easily…

Stiles stalked out of the parlor and back into the snowstorm in which he started. Somewhere, there was a ring of trees that would be the place of his final reckoning.

He followed the path, passing statues of both Peter Hale and Kate Argent, the two sides of a war that had almost gotten Stiles killed once before. He pulverized both statues with fists that felt no pain at the impact. He saw the ring ahead, and the black furred beast that waited within. This was no Alpha Derek, come to give him warmth and rescue, and the gift of lycanthropy. This was a being trapped since time immemorial in a hell-dimension, determined to destroy Stiles in order to get free. It boasted almost unlimited power to confront sentient beings with the things they feared and hated the most, after which it devoured them.

Stiles went towards it eagerly. Neither would leave the ring until the other was destroyed. That was just fine with him.

It was different seeing the creature in the flesh rather than in one of its Glamours…it was inhuman looking and assaulted the very fortress of sanity just by its presence…but it also seemed _finite…contained._ The creature's fur, which had been glossy black in Stiles mind was gray and even missing in patches. The creature was old…and not the Power it once was, it who had once fed on whole cities with armies of horrors now struggled to make do with the random victim it could devour and drain. The proud horns looked chipped and uneven. The bleat it gave off was terrifying…and pitiable.

No words were spoken, and in fact no blows were exchanged. When Stiles entered the ring of trees, he simply stood before Kadeth and _willed_ him to be dead. Kadeth responded in kind, the two beings focusing their reality altering powers on each other to erase their enemy from existence.

It was nearly an even match. Kadeth was old, but powerful…and long experienced. Stiles was young and strong, but new to this form of battle. Kadeth was a _whole_, whereas Stiles was a _half_ at best. Kadeth pressed every advantage, flooding the boy-thing with endless terrors…but finding no weakness from which to draw strength. Ironically, by throwing everything it had at Stiles during his journey here, it had exhausted nearly the whole bag of tricks. Had it used one fear at a time, it might have met with greater success…but it was desperate, and after so many long years had begun to know fear of its own. Stiles had been so drained by the experience, he felt as if he used up his life's allotment of fear. Having faced everything, there was simply nothing more to be afraid of. All that was left was rage, which Stiles had in abundant supply. Yet still Kadeth seemed to be winning.

But that was only the _external_ battle. Within Stiles, things were changing. The wolf and the goat, representing forces that had been struggling for balance since the day they had become aware of each other, suddenly quit their internal battle for dominance. The wolf fed all of its life-force into the goat, holding nothing back. In the real world, Stiles screamed as a new horn pushed its way through the right side of his skull, his eye turning from amber to black with a red cat-like iris. The wolf inside him shrank as the goat-presence overwhelmed Stiles from within. Had the threat of Kadeth been less immediate, it would have acted at once, easily squeezing the wolf as (well as any shred of the human Stiles) out of existence. Instead, it focused its rapidly waxing power outward, and lashed Kadeth with its titanic will…now capable of altering perceived reality on a par with that of its ancestor.

As Kadeth beheld the full transformation of the boy into one of his own kind, he knew it was over. The great plan had failed, and now there was nowhere left to go. It played its final card, sending out one last signal before the energies Stiles commanded formed rings around Kadeth's essence, and then suddenly squeezed together. The explosion propelled Stiles from the ring. Reality seemed to tear around him.

{}{}{}{}

'Go ahead. Start demolition.' came the text. The foreman gave the signal to the wrecking ball operator. He gave a thumb's up back and hit the lever.

{}{}{}{}

The Pack looked over as Stiles body slammed to the floor of the small hallway.

The Pack cheered, all save for Derek as he slowly realized what happened. Even Stella was speechless. Stiles came to and glanced at them.

"Heeeereee's Stiles!" he said without humor. "I don't have much time. We won…and we lost. Kadeth is dead…but I'm too far gone to be allowed back on earth." Stiles waved a hand at the doorway home, and with a small snick it opened. Beyond lay the dilapidated bedroom of a musty old house.

"No way, Stiles-" Derek began. He bent double as a crippling pain roared through his body.

"You swore an oath, Derek. It will kill you if you try to break it. Get the Pack out of here. Go!" Derek gave one last glance at Stella, then rushed everyone through the door. Stiles heard them crashing through the house as they left.

"Mom…you should go too. I'm not going to be your son anymore, as soon as whatever's happening inside me finishes taking me over. The only reason I can even still pretend to be me is that the wolf isn't dead yet. The goat's killing it right now…just like it killed Kadeth. I won't be a werewolf anymore…I'll be something so much worse." Stiles discussed this as if he were going over a list of tedious errands. Human thought was falling away from him. Soon, he wouldn't even remember what it was like.

"I'll stay for just a minute more." Stella said evenly. She was gathering herself, preparing for what she was going to do. She would never let Stiles be trapped in some hell-dimension. She could take him out, if she did it before he reached full strength. Even if it didn't destroy her…it would destroy her.

"Hey." muttered Nega-Scott.

"Holy crap." They both turned towards Nega-Scott, forgotten in the mad flight from Pheer House.

"Stiles…kill me. Put me out of my misery." He groaned.

"Scott…I can't."

Stella looked at him hopefully. Was he winning the internal battle after all?

"I'm sorry Scott…but as I said before, your death is useless to me. I'm gonna need you to _feed!_" And the last bit of humanity drained out of Stiles Stilinsky. He gripped Nega-Scott's head in a hooked claw hand.

"Always said…I would give my life for you…" Nega-Scott moaned. His eyes suddenly flared wide open, the bleeding hellfire gaze of the Alpha glaring at Stiles with pure malevolence. Stiles rejoiced…this is what he needed…he would feed on Nega-Scott's rage for years…perhaps even becoming strong enough to…

Nega-Scott grabbed one of the hook-clawed fingers and quickly raked it across his own throat. The skin ripped wide, bathing Stiles in his best friend's blood. The crimson glow faded as the young Alpha closed his eyes for the last time.

"Not…so…useless…" he gasped out before dying.

"NO! _WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?"_ Stiles fell backward, his body flailing around as the internal battle…so nearly won…suddenly took another turn.

Stella knew she should do it, knew she should destroy her son while she had the chance, but she could not do it until she saw final convincing proof that he was gone forever. When she saw him about to feed on his best friend, she felt that moment had come. She lifted her arm and pointed her finger at her son. Then, to her horror, she watched the young Alpha use her son to end his own life. Having known werewolves for years, she knew what would happen next.

A sound caught her attention. She glanced outside the window of Earth's version of Pheer House and saw the wrecking ball beginning its swing towards the house. The portal had about five seconds left before it was destroyed. Stella grabbed Stiles and pulled him through the door just as the top of the house was knocked free by the wrecking ball. The portal popped like a soap bubble, leaving her in the open air of Earth with a boy who might or might not decide to devour the world tomorrow.

{}{}{}{}

The foreman almost had a heart attack when he saw the group of people running from the house. He almost had an aneurysm when he saw that one of them was Whittemore's kid…and he looked like he was unconscious, or worse. He frantically squawked at the ball operator to stop the damn thing.

{}{}{}{}

Somewhere, deep within the soul of Stiles Stilinsky, a wolf grown suddenly to enormous proportions turned and devoured a rather indignant goat.

{}{}{}{}

The Pack made it off Pheer House property. Jackson, Lydia and Scott came awake, and stared with hollow eyes at the house that kept them prisoner.

Then their eyes widened as they saw Stiles walking towards them, a Stiles who looked completely human…but who seemed to walk with a little extra swagger in his step. Derek ran forward, then stopped in amazement as his mate flashed a crimson eyed gaze at him.

"Guess we are sharing the pants in this relationship, Der."

Derek's eyes rolled up into his head, and he passed out.

{}{}{}{}

Pheer House was demolished, and the frantic foreman was assured that nothing would be mentioned to Whittemore Sr.…as long as he kept his own mouth shut as well.

{}{}{}{}

Nega-Scott rejoined his Pack on another world, and all of them felt that they could now face Stiles and Derek once again.

Nega-Stella became less meek, having learned she could blast things.

{}{}{}{}

Back at the Hale home, Stella said goodbye to Derek and her son for the last time. Stiles cried, and so did Derek. "I do have one more early Christmas present for you all. She gave them each matching jackets with Christmas themed patterns on the backs. She insisted they put them on before she left. As one, they all fainted. Stella prepared to break her last rule.

{}{}{}{}

"That was the most boring Halloween ever!" grumbled Stiles. "Watching Lydia bob for apples for hours. I swear I'll have nightmares about it. If _only_ that coin Ted flipped had turned the other way!"

Derek felt bad about it, but he was glad things worked out the way they did. After all, haunted houses could be dangerous.

{}{}{}{}

Up on a cloud, Laura Hale sat chatting with Stella Stilinsky. "The uppity-ups really put the whammy on you going down to see them, huh?"

Stella nodded her head thoughtfully.

"You wiped their minds to keep them from going insane…but how are they going to explain Stiles?"

Stella looked startled. "You know, I forgot all about that!"

"Hoo, boy." Laura sighed.

{}{}{}{}

"Stiles, you've gotten really bossy lately. Don't forget who the Alpha in this Pack is!" Derek grumbled at his mate as they got ready for bed.

"Bossy? Bossy! I'll show you who's Bossy!"

A clawed hand yanked Derek onto the bed. The next day, they had to shop for a new one.


End file.
